This is a widespread, coastal species in the western Atlantic, ranging from Massachusetts in the United States to south of Brazil, including the wider Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. It is considered a highly migratory species, however, tagging data from the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM) does not indicate migratory behavior and there is evidence of genetic differentiation between the Gulf of Mexico and Northwest Atlantic stocks (IUCN 2010). Still, further studies with larger sample size in and additional sampling localities are required (Kumar and Kocour 2015).