Common name: Live sharksucker, Australian remora, Common remora, Gapu

Japanese name: Kobanzame (小判鮫)

Taiwan common name: 長印魚、長印仔魚、印魚、屎印、牛屎印、狗屎印

Chinese common name: 鮣

Korean common name: 빨판상어

Scientific name: Echeneis naucrates (Linnaeus,1758)

Nigiri sushi detail: Live sharksucker (Kobanzame) Nigiri sushi

Characteristics:

Live sharksucker (Kobanzame) is distributed in temperate and tropical waters throughout the world, except in the eastern Pacific and northwestern Atlantic. Its body is elongated. The body color is blue-brown. The head has an oval sucker formed by a deformed first dorsal fin. The total length is about 80 cm. The maximum length exceeds 1 meter. Up to about 30 cm in length, it lives by adhering to large swimming fish and turtles, but as it grows, it becomes a free swimmer. Although it is named “shark,” it is not a shark species.

Kobanzame is rarely marketed as a food source, but its appearance is not popular and it does not sell well. It is a tasty fish with transparent white flesh and a high umami content, which is not what one would expect from its appearance.

However, it has a strong, distinctive smell, and if left unattended, the smell will cling to the meat, so the entrails need to be processed as soon as possible. It is also tasty fried or grilled, but its drawback is that it becomes hard when heated. Incidentally, the sucker part of the head is too hard to eat.

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