Help With Fish Species

[Normspics]

I photographed these fish in the Panama Fish Market (Mercado de Mariscos), I really need to improve my description, can anyone help identify these fish please?

 

[Ed Rooney]

23 minutes ago, Normspics said:

I photographed these fish in the Panama Fish Market (Mercado de Mariscos), I really need to improve my description, can anyone help identify these fish please?

 

 

Looks like a tilapia, Norm. 

[Normspics]

Thanks Ed, the tail doesn't quite match the Tilapia I'm seeing on the net.

[Rebecca Ore]

They look more salt water than freshwater.   Try Fishbase Panama, salt water.   Maybe this:  https://www.fishbase.de/photos/ThumbnailsSummary.php?ID=1131

 

Fishbase is a great resource but a bit difficult to use.  Cichlids sometimes have forked tails (generally lacustrine species, but mostly don't.  They have dorsals and anal fins with spiny rays upfront and soft rays behind, but all in one fin, connected.  The pectoral fins also don't seem like cichlids, which tend to be shorter and broader than those (cichlids fan their eggs and fry.  Only one tilapia from Lake Tanganyika looks remotely like it, but I'm getting salt water vibes from it, or at least schooling open water. 

 

 

[mwakeling]

Might be a Brassy Grunt. Microlepidotus brevipinnis.

https://biogeodb.stri.si.edu/sftep/en/thefishes/species/1370

[Normspics]

16 hours ago, mwakeling said:

Might be a Brassy Grunt. Microlepidotus brevipinnis.

https://biogeodb.stri.si.edu/sftep/en/thefishes/species/1370

 

I think you have solved it thank you, I looked up your suggestion and it’s referred to as an important food fish, got this from a fish sellers site 

Brassy Grunt or “Sol Chino” Orthopristis Chalceus

Thank you

[Normspics]

17 hours ago, Rebecca Ore said:

They look more salt water than freshwater.   Try Fishbase Panama, salt water.   Maybe this:  https://www.fishbase.de/photos/ThumbnailsSummary.php?ID=1131

 

Fishbase is a great resource but a bit difficult to use.  Cichlids sometimes have forked tails (generally lacustrine species, but mostly don't.  They have dorsals and anal fins with spiny rays upfront and soft rays behind, but all in one fin, connected.  The pectoral fins also don't seem like cichlids, which tend to be shorter and broader than those (cichlids fan their eggs and fry.  Only one tilapia from Lake Tanganyika looks remotely like it, but I'm getting salt water vibes from it, or at least schooling open water. 

 

 

Thanks for the link to fish base I hadn’t known about the, it’s going to be very helpful. 

[Rebecca Ore]

3 hours ago, Normspics said:

Thanks for the link to fish base I hadn’t known about the, it’s going to be very helpful. 

 

A grunt of one kind or another, then.   Ask fish sellers for the common name (warning: "pargo" includes a lot of different things, mostly various species of snappers, but not always).  The other thing is to check two other sources that aren't simply (Montego Bay) relying on FishBase.   Other things -- dead fish are generally duller colored than live fish, and juveniles can look different from adults and adults in breeding colors can look extraordinarily different from non-breeding adults, and there can be regional color variations which may or may not be subspecies or closely related separate species.