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,
Cleaner fish groups of animals, such as cleaner shrimps. Cleaner fish advertise their services with conspicuous coloration, often displaying a brilliant blue stripe that spans the length of the body. This adaptation has evolved independently in different species of cleaner fish, making it an example of convergent evolution. Other species of fish, called mimics, imitate the behavior and phenotype of cleaner fish to gain access to client fish tissue. This is another example of convergent evolution. The best known cleaner fish are the cleaner wrasses of the genus "Labroides" found on coral reefs in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean. These small