Equally at home in freshwater as in saltwater, the striped mullet (Mugil cephalus) is a common inhabitant of Georgia’s coastal rivers, estuaries and offshore waters. If you’ve spent any time on the water, there a good chance you’ve witnessed one of their more well-known traits…jumping out of the water! It is still not definitively known why they do this, but some of the more common explanations include escaping predators, removing parasites, improving oxygen exchange, and my personal favorite, because they can! Striped mullet are dark blue-grey to green dorsally with silvery sides. Adults appear striped as each of their scales on their upper sides have a spot on them.
Adult striped mullet are known for aggregating in large schools, and move from Georgia’s shallower coastal waters to deeper offshore waters in the fall and winter months to spawn. Larval mullet make their way back to the coast to seek protection within Georgia’s sheltered estuaries to mature. Once fully developed, striped mullet will inhabit the state’s saltmarshes, tidal creeks, mud flats, oyster bars as well as tidal freshwater and riverine environments. As they grow juvenile striped mullet will dine on small crustaceans and zooplankton, but as adults they switch to a mostly all-plant diet. In fact, striped mullet have a gizzard-like structure in their stomachs that helps them break down hard to digest items such as decaying plant material, algae and inorganic particles such as sand.
Striped mullet represent an important ecological link in Georgia’s estuarine communities. While they are one of the most prolific forage fish in the region, they are an important food source for larger fish and other predators as well. In fact, smaller individuals, known as ‘finger mullet’ are a favorite bait choice for many Georgia saltwater anglers targeting recreationally important species such as red drum, sea trout and flounder. Georgia doesn’t have a commercial mullet fishery like their neighbors, Florida and North Carolina, but their meat and roe (eggs) are still a seafood favorite for many Georgians with deep ties to the coast.
Fun fact. Striped mullet are known by many common names depending on their geographic location: Some of these include black mullet, bright mullet, common mullet, flathead mullet, gray mullet, hardgut mullet, river mullet, and sea mullet.
