Sardinella tawilis

Sardinella is the diminutive of the Greek sarda, meaning literally "little sardine". The species was originally identified and named in 1927 as Harengula tawilis by Albert William Herre, the Chief of the Fisheries Division of the Bureau of Science in Manila. The species was later moved to the more appropriate and taxonomically accurate genus, Sardinella. == Description ==

S. tawilis is a small fish reaching up to 15 cm and weighing less than 30 g. Like other members of their family, they have laterally compressed bodies with bellies covered in tough, scale-like scutes. They have a single, triangular dorsal fin and a forked caudal fin. They possess long, slender gill rakers in their mouths. == Range and distribution ==

S. tawilis populations are only found in Taal Lake in the Batangas province on the island of Luzon in the Philippines. Taal Lake is the third-largest lake in the Philippines and is located in the caldera of Taal Volcano. It has an area of about and lies at nine municipalities and two cities. Near its center lies the Volcano Island which has a crater lake in the middle. The lake has a maximum depth of and an average depth of .{{Cite journal|title=Status of Taal Lake Fishery Resources with Emphasis on the Endemic Freshwater Sardine, Sardinella tawilis (Herre, 1927) == Ecology ==

S. tawilis, like members of its family, is an epipelagic filter feeder, using its gill rakers to strain plankton from the water while it swims with its mouth open. They roam the lake in large schools, just below the surface as the volcanic (and thus sedimentary) nature of the lake limits their plankton food to the surface. The freshwater sardinella prefers to ingest larger prey, such as adult copepods, supplemented with rotifers and water fleas. During the summer months when the density of smaller copepods were much higher, their stomach contents consisted primarily of calanoid copepods, which are larger than the copepods blooming during this time. This suggests some partial control over prey selection exhibited by the fish, as opposed to simple filter-feeding. Little is known about their reproduction. It is known that the Taal population spawns during the months of April to July, when surface temperatures are highest. ==Importance to humans==

Despite its threatened status, stocks in Lake Taal have been commercially fished for several decades. The fish is a widely popular food fish in the Philippines, and tons are shipped to most of the major cities in the country. Local supermarkets and wet markets usually have a tray or pile dedicated solely to the species. The species is commonly referred to as tawilis in the local language of Tagalog. On the island of Cebu, one of the many places where tawilis is shipped, the native Cebuano name for the fish is tunsoy. In literature, Jose Rizal used three dried tawilis in his novel Noli Me Tangere to symbolize the Three Martyred Priests of Bagumbayan (Jose Burgos, Jacinto Zamora and Mariano Gomez). == Conservation ==

Because of several factors, the species is threatened by overfishing. As with all species consisting of a single population in one location, a local extinction event will lead to species extinction. As the population of the Philippines grows, the demand will be greater for tawilis, possibly overfishing the lake's stock population. According to the IUCN Red List report which conducted last 28 February 2017 and published in 2018, the catch of the tawilis started to decline since 1998 due to overfishing, illegal use of active fishing gears, increasing use of fish cages, and the deterioration of the water quality in Taal Lake. The harvest of the tawilis has said to declined by at least 50 percent over the past 10 years. Because of this, the IUCN listed the tawilis as endangered. == Sources ==