Grunion bluish-green backs and silvery sides and bellies. Their snouts are bluntly rounded and slippery. Silversides differ from true smelts of the family Osmeridae in that they lack the trout-like adipose fin. Young grunion grow rapidly and are about five inches long by the time they reach one year old and are ready to spawn. Adult fish normally range in size from with a maximum recorded size of (La Jolla, Ca., 05-11-05). Average body lengths for males and females are , respectively, at the end of one year; at the end of two years; and at the end of three years.
USS Grunion bow. The wreckage then slid two-thirds of a mile down the side of an extinct volcano, coming to rest on a notch in the underwater mountain. USS Grunion USS "Grunion" (SS-216) was a "Gato"-class submarine that was sunk at Kiska, Alaska, during World War II. She was the only ship of the United States Navy to be named for the grunion. Her keel was laid down by the Electric Boat Company in Groton, Connecticut on 1 March 1941. She was launched on 22 December 1941, (sponsored by Mrs. Stanford C. Hooper, wife of Rear Admiral Hooper), and commissioned on 11