Anchovies as food Anchovies as food Anchovies are a family (Engraulidae) of small, common salt-water forage fish. There are 144 species in 17 genera, found in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans. Anchovies are usually classified as an oily fish. They are small, green fish with blue reflections due to a silver longitudinal stripe that runs from the base of the caudal fin. They range from to in adult length, and the body shape is variable with more slender fish in northern populations. A traditional method of processing and preserving anchovies is to gut and salt them in brine, allow them to mature,
Bludger (fish) and caudal fins are olive green, with the soft dorsal, anal and anal fins having white lobe tips and the anal having white leading and distal edge. The pelvic and pectoral fins are hyaline to green. The bludger is distributed throughout the tropical to subtropical regions of the Indian and west Pacific Oceans, ranging from South Africa in the west, along east Africa and north to the Red Sea. Its distribution in the Indian Ocean extends east to India, South East Asia, Indonesia and as far south as northern Australia. In the Pacific Ocean, it extends as far north as