Bigeye Trevallies Schooling, Cabo Pulmo National Park, Cabo San Lucas, Baja Peninsula, Mexico

The bigeye trevally shows a change in colour as it ages, changing both overall colour and body patterns. Juveniles are a silvery yellow to silvery brown in colour, and possess five to six dark vertical bands on their sides, from which the specific epithet sexfasciatus arose. As they mature, the bands fade and become indistinct and the overall colour shifts to a silvery blue above and whitish below. In adults, the bars are completely absent and the dorsal colour is a silvery olive to blue green, fading to silvery white below. In juveniles, the fins are pale grey to yellow with darker edges, becoming darker overall in adulthood, with the anal and caudal fins yellow to black and the second dorsal fin olive to black. The tip of the second dorsal fin has a distinctive white tip. The bigeye trevally also has a small dark opercular spot on the upper margin.
Distribution and habitat
The bigeye trevally is widely distributed throughout the tropical and subtropical waters of both the Indian and Pacific Oceans. In the Indian Ocean, it ranges from South Africa and Madagascar in the west, along the east African coastline up to both the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. Its range extends east along India, South East Asia, Indonesia and many offshore Indian Ocean islands. The range extends north to Japan and south to Australia in this central Indo-pacific region. In the Pacific Ocean, the bigeye trevally inhabits most of the tropical island groups including Hawaii, with its range extending east to the western American coastline. In this eastern region of its distribution it has been recorded from the American state of California in the north, including the Gulf of California, and south to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands.