Similar body shape to yellowtail scad but a greenish grey tail, fewer scales (usually less than 76 along the lateral line), and a straight rather than slightly curved front section to the lateral line. It occurs in large schools, which remain deep on the continental shelf except when surface water temperatures fall below 17°C. Fish mature at a size of approximately 270 mm when three or four years old and have a maximum age of about 15 years. A commercial fishery taking up to 40,000 tonnes per year commenced in Tas in the late 1980s to provide feed for the aquaculture industry, but it quickly collapsed through overfishing and rising local water temperatures.

• Max Size: 64 cm
• Sea Temperature Range: 10.3-22.5°C
• Depth: 0-500m
• Habitat: Open ocean

• IUCN Threat Status: Not Evaluated
• Occurrence: Infrequent (5% of sites)
  Occurrence describes how often the species is found on surveys within its distribution. It is calculated as the % of reef sites surveyed by RLS divers across all the ecoregions in which the species has been observed
• Abundance: Large aggregations (106 per transect)
  Abundance is calculated as the average number of individuals recorded per RLS transect, where present.