Common names include rough scad and horse mackerel[2] in English, as well as chinchard frappeur (French), chicharro garretón (Spanish), jurel (in Argentina and Uruguay), and carapau, garaçuma, surel, and xixarro (in Brazil).

[3] It is native to parts of the western Atlantic Ocean, including seas off the eastern coasts of North and South America and the Gulf of Mexico.

[5] Its diet is made up of invertebrates[4] such as copepods, including those of the genera Calanoides, Candacia, Centropages, Corycaeus, Eucalanus, and Oncaea, and the species Temora stylifera and Calanopia americana.

[2] Studies of the parasite load carried by the fish reveal it may be infested with the digenean flatworms Aponurus laguncula and Ectenurus virgulus, the monogenean flatworm Pseudaxine trachuri, a Corynosoma worm, many larval nematodes,[9] the tapeworm Grillotia carvajalregorum,[10] and several copepods, such as Caligus mutabilis, Lernanthropus trachuri, and Tuxophorus caligodes.

[4] Trachurus lathami was formally described by John Treadwell Nichols in 1920 with its type locality given as Orient, Long Island, Suffolk County, New York.

[13] The specific name honours the collectors of the type, the Long Island farmer and amateur naturalist Roy Latham (1881–1979).