is a commercilally important bottom fish distributing from the northern East China Sea to the Bohai Seaand plays an important role in the marine ecosystems.In recent yearsand characterized by lower age population structure. In spite of its high abundance and importance to fisheriesonly limited information is available on its feeding ecology in juvenile stage of small yellow croaker.In the present paperthe diet composition and ontogenetic variation in the feeding habits of juvenile small yellow croaker at standard length of 20-109 mm were examined by applying the Kruskal-Wallis testa chi-squared test and the cluster analysis based on the total of 743 samples from seasonal bottom trawl surveys in the Haizhou bay of the Yellow Sea from July 2008 to August 2008.The juvenile small yellow croaker was a generalist with a diet of more than 30 prey species from stomach contents analysis. Crustaceansmysidaceas and decapodasAcanthomysis longirostris were the dominant preys. The relative importance of cephalopodvaried significantly among different classes of sizes. The PES increased with increasing fish sizebut the MSFI did not present the obvious trend of change. The percentage of decapoda and pisces significantly increased with increasing of fish sizewhereas the percentage of copepoda and mysidacea decreased. The dietary breadth increased significantly for fish greater than 80 mm SL. It indicated that the larger fish have broader dietary breadthand can enhance their ability to accommodate the impact of environmental fluctuation. Cluster analysis revealed that there was an abrupt change in diet composition in the fish at about 80 mm SL. and Acanthomysis longirostris dominated the diet of fish smaller than 80 mm SL were the dominant prey for fish greater than 80 mm SL.the diet composition of juvenile small yellow croaker in the Yellow Sea varied significantly. The number of preys was much less than the pastwas the dominant portion of copepoda Leptochela gracilis was the dominant prey of the decapoda instead of . And the juvenile small yellow croaker started to prey on decapoda in the 20-26 mm SLindicating that the fish may change their feeding habit to adapt the change of its biological characters.It is found that it is better to use numerical percentage or the percentage of frequency occurring for the index of the cluster analysis. To compare with the SL of the abrupt change of the diet of the juvenile small yellow croaker in the past yearswe conclude that the ontogenetic variation of juvenile small yellow croaker is not related with the age