Those swift, sleek marauders of the worlds' oceans, the mackerels, bonitos, and tunas, comprise a famous family of fishes, rich with lore and mystique. They are the quintessence of hydrodynamic perfection in design for speed. Whole fleets depend on them for their success, and sportsmen await anxiously for their arrival every season.
All species share a number of design features which immediately indicate their family birthright.
Color is variable on some species, and there's so much popular misinformation on the identify and range of some of these that care should be taken in accepting even the printed word regarding catch information on them. Actually, most species are quite easy to identify when one knows what to look for, but since many species are high speed vagabonds, the possibility of uncommon species entering an area is real, especially during warm seasons. Gulf coastal waters, with mention of relatives plying Caribbean seas that may venture in. That name is properly applied to Thunnus alalunga, a warm water Caribbean-tropical Atlantic species probably absent from most of the Gulf, while Thunnus albacares refers to the yellowfin tuna. Like all the tuna, the yellowfin has separate finlets behind the dorsal and anal fin, a strongly forked or lunate tail-fin, and keels at the base of the tail.