Species: Diplectrum formosum, Common Sand Perch, Sand Perch

Diplectrum formosum (Linnaeus, 1766)

Sand Perch, Common Sand Perch

Body elongate, moderately compressed; rear of top jaw exposed when mouth closed; teeth fixed, not depressible; angle of preopercle with rectangular bony spur supporting 2 clusters of radiating spines; dorsal fairly low, X spines, 11-13 rays; anal fin III, 6-8; pectoral 15-17; pelvics inserted under or a little before pectorals; tail fin moderately forked, top lobe of northern subspecies (see below) with a filament; lateral line complete; scales moderately small, rough; snout and between eyes scaleless; 66-88 lateral scales; 10-15 rows of scales between eye and lower corner of preoperculum.

Pale yellowish brown; ~6 thin blue stripes from head to tail, many wavy blue lines on head; body either with ~8 indistinct dark bars or a dark stripe from snout, through eye to tail, with a dark spot on the base of the tail fin.

Reaches 30 cm.

Inshore seagrass flats and sand and rubble bottoms.

Depth range: 1-132 m, usually 7-50 m.

Virginia to Brazil; with 2 subspecies, one (D. formosum formosum) from Virginia to the Yucatan, the other (D. formosum radians) from Colombia to Brazil.