Divefree

Fish

Blue Kingfish

Carangoides ferdau

A silvery blue-green trevally with faint dusky bars, cruising sandy beaches and reefs from Port Elizabeth northward.

Also known as blou koningvis

Blue Kingfish
Photo: Mark Rosenstein · CC BY-NC 4.0
Typical size
Attains 70 cm
Habitat
Sandy beaches and reef
Depth
To 60 m

The blue kingfish is silvery with a blue-green back, usually showing five or six faint dusky bars down the sides and sometimes a scatter of inconspicuous golden spots; it lacks a spot on the gill cover. It grows to about 70 cm, with a South African spearfishing record of 8 kg.

It inhabits coastal waters alongside sandy beaches and reef habitat to around 60 m, from Port Elizabeth northward, and is a broadly distributed Indo-West Pacific species. A fast, active predator, it is popular with anglers and spearfishermen.