Slimy

The slimy, or common ponyfish, is a compact, strongly compressed silver fish with a highly protrusible mouth that shoots forward to snatch small prey. Its skin produces copious mucus, giving it the slippery feel behind the name, and it has a faint pattern of narrow bars on the upper flanks.

It schools in estuaries, harbours and shallow sandy bays along the KwaZulu-Natal coast, feeding on small invertebrates and detritus. Ponyfish famously host light-producing bacteria in a throat organ. It is caught mainly as a small by-catch or bait fish rather than a targeted species, and forms an important food source for larger predators.