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Tautog

Tautoga onitis

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

Species Information
Size Tautog grow to about 90 cm and 10.2 kg.
Diagnostic characters
Habitat, biology, and fisheries Strictly coastal fish. They occur inshore seasonally and are present in 12-25 m year-round reeflike areas. Non-schooling fish, but individuals often congregate in the same habitat. Live near the bottom, strongly associated with cover. Tautog vary differently in their markings. Adults are often rather darkly colored, ranging from a generally mouse-colored background to one of chocolate gray, deep dusky, olive green, or dull blackish, with the sides irregularly mottled or blotched with darker pigment. Tautog are opportunistic feeders, feeding throughout the day on a variety of invertebrates, chiefly mollusks, especially mussels; barnacles that they pick of rocks and pilings; various other crustaceans including amphipods, isopods, and decapods, echinoderms; and occasionally small fishes. Tautog are a highly valued recreational species and excellent table fish. Harvested in commercial quantities from MA to VA.
Distribution Occur along the eastern coast of North America from Halifax, N.S. to northern South Carolina. Most abundant between Cape Cod and the Chesapeake Bay.
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.