[2] The fish typically travel in large schools, spending most of their time relatively near the water surface.

The visible lateral line splits this color transition as it travels down the body, ending at the caudal peduncle.

[7] This anguilliform body shape is conducive to eluding prey through being highly mobile and able to shimmy away on the benthic floor.

A. americanus has been found from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, to Labrador in the Northwest Atlantic (NWA) region.

[9] Substrates that attract the fish incorporate clean grains of sand or gravel, as well as crushed shell.

This choice could be due to larger grains being easier to move through as well as the substrate being capable of holding more dissolved oxygen.

After burying itself in the sand, the fish will remain hidden for days, only to emerge in small groups of two or three and start looking for food.

Ammodytes americanus have been found to primarily eat copepods, small crustaceans, making them zooplanktivorius fishes.

[9] These crustaceans provide a main source of nutrients for the sand lances, having been found in 37.8% of stomachs examined in one study.

[13] Ammodytes species have a preference for copepods, making the sand lance a plankton feeder.

[7] A conclusion about when they eat can be drawn from observing if food was present in the stomachs of fish caught at different intervals of time, stretching from day to night.

The schools are visually vertically compressed and tightly condensed, with the average distance between two individuals being ½-¾ of a body length.

The American sand lance, Ammodytes americanus, is the inshore species, residing closer to the coast in shallower waters.

The Northern sand lance, Ammodytes dubius, lives offshore in colder and deeper waters.

[16] Ammodytes in the NWA area have been marked as moderately vulnerable to climate change when compared to other marine animals in the region.

When the ocean temperature is higher than in previous years, the timing of spawning and other important life events can become off.

Due to regulations put in by the Mid-Atlantic and New England Fishery Management Councils, commercial fishing of A. americanus is restricted to 1,700 lbs.

The importance of the American Sand Lances is due in part to some seabird species of concern that eat the forage fish.