| Remarks |
Occur in freshwater to estuarine conditions. Breed at sea; juveniles move into estuaries and enter rivers in late winter or early spring. Feed on benthic algae and small invertebrates over muddy bottom. Changes in the feeding habits from migratory zooplankton to meiobenthos which takes place between 0.1 and 0.2 cm length, this is followed by a period when large quantities of food, mainly insects, are taken from the surface of the water; when it reached > 0.3 cm, changed feeding on microbenthos and sand (Ref. 56101). Occurs mainly in the freshwater zones of Eastern Cape rivers with small numbers in brackishwater at the head of estuaries; has an extended juvenile recruitment period; found to normally penetrate further upriver than Mugil cephalus (Ref. 74748). Opportunistic feeder, eat soft bodied insects if available (Ref. 74749). Gill-raker filaments were found in the stomach captured using seine net. Due to their thinner and more pointed snout, these species are frequently caught in the meshes of seine nets, in a gill net fashion. Mullets struggle to be free of the constricting meshes, food is often regurgitated at an early stage, subsequent gasping of oxygen would then easily cause gill-rakers, broken loose in the struggle, to be swalowed (Ref. 74739). |