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- As an expression of parental pride in their daughter, Taylor Spencer ‘83 and Martha Spencer recently established an undergraduate field research endowment at the Batten School & VIMS.
  
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Spotted seatrout

Cynoscion nebulosus

Information and species illustrations courtesy of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Species Information
Size Maximum 70 cm; common to 40 cm.
Diagnostic characters
Habitat, biology, and fisheries Found usually in river estuaries and shallow coastal marine waters over sand bottoms, often associated with seagrass beds (as nursery for young); also in salt marshes and tidal pools of high salinity. Feeds mainly on crustaceans and fishes. Caught mainly with pound nets, gill nets, seines, and occasionally with bottom trawls; also by anglers who sometimes land 3 times the commercial catch on west coast of Florida. Marketed mostly fresh; a highly esteemed food fish. Landings totaled 210 000 t globally from 1950 to 2024. Florida landing reduced from 600 t (1980) to less than 100 t. (1995). There is a shift of the fishery to recreational fishing.
Distribution Atlantic coast from Long Island to Florida and Gulf of Mexico from Florida to Laguna Madre, Mexico.
Citations Carpenter, K.E. (ed) The living marine resources of the Western Central Atlantic. Volume 1: Introduction, molluscs, crustaceans, hagfishes, sharks, batoid fishes, and chimaeras. FAO Species Identification Guide for Fishery Purposes and American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists Special Publication No. 5. Rome, FAO. 2002. pp. 1-600. Carpenter, K.E. (ed) The living marine resources of the Western Central Atlantic. Volume 2: Bony fishes part 1 (Acipenseridae to Grammatidae). FAO Species Identification Guide for Fishery Purposes and American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists Special Publication No. 5. Rome, FAO. 2002. pp. 601-1374. Carpenter, K.E. (ed) The living marine resources of the Western Central Atlantic. Volume 3: Bony fishes part 2 (Opistognathidae to Molidae), sea turtles and marine mammals. FAO Species Identification Guide for Fishery Purposes and American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists Special Publication No. 5. Rome, FAO. 2002. pp. 1375-2127.