Atlantic Spadefish

Photo: Brian Gratwicke · CC BY

Atlantic spadefish gather around King of the Sea in schools of up to 50 during summer months, their compressed disc-shaped bodies and bold vertical banding making them one of Madeira's most visually dramatic reef schooling species as they circle the superstructure in slow coordinated sweeps. Though primarily a western Atlantic species, their occurrence at Madeira appears to be facilitated by range-shifting driven by warming Atlantic temperatures, and their use of artificial structures as aggregation points mirrors behaviour documented on wrecks throughout the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. As omnivorous foragers of zooplankton, small invertebrates, and algae, they contribute to the energy cycling of the wreck ecosystem during their seasonal residence.