''Boops boops'' (; from

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

, literally 'cow-eye'), commonly called the bogue, is a species of

seabream The Sparidae are a family of fish in the order Perciformes, commonly called sea breams and porgies. The sheepshead, scup, and red seabream are species in this family. Most sparids are deep-bodied compressed fish with a small mouth separated by ...

native to the eastern Atlantic. Its common name in most languages refers to its large ("bug") eyes.

Distribution and habitat

The species is found off the coasts of Europe, Africa, the Azores and the Canary Islands, from Norway to Angola, and in the Mediterranean and Black Seas. It avoids brackish waters such as the Baltic Sea. A

demersal The demersal zone is the part of the sea or ocean (or deep lake) consisting of the part of the water column near to (and significantly affected by) the seabed and the benthos. The demersal zone is just above the benthic zone and forms a laye ...

and semi-

pelagic The pelagic zone consists of the water column of the open ocean, and can be further divided into regions by depth (as illustrated on the right). The word ''pelagic'' is derived . The pelagic zone can be thought of as an imaginary cylinder or w ...

feeder, it can generally be found at a depth of , and infrequently down to .

Ecology

It consumes seaweed, crustaceans, and some plankton, in schools that rise to the surface at night. Individuals can reach , but average . Sex determination in the bogue is unclear. It has variously been described as a rudimentary intersex organism, with a few intersex individuals, or a protogynous intersex, with individuals starting out life as females, and some becoming male later on.

Human use

The species is commercially fished, with 37,830 tonnes taken in 2008. It is marketed in sizes from Small (1/2, 2/3), Medium (2/4, 3/5, 4/6), Large (4/8, 4/7, 5/7, 5/8). Sizes are not standardized, but the mentioned sizes are often used in commercial transactions. When cleaned and pan fried, broiled or baked fresh, they are good tasting, but when stored their gut flora soon spread unpleasant flavors to their flesh. Much of the catch is used for fishmeal or tuna fishing bait.

Parasites

The bogue is host to a wide variety of

parasite Parasitism is a Symbiosis, close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside another organism, the Host (biology), host, causing it some harm, and is Adaptation, adapted structurally to this way of lif ...

s, ranging from

metazoan Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals consume organic material, breathe oxygen, are able to move, can reproduce sexually, and go through an ontogenetic stage in ...

s such as

monogenea Monogeneans are a group of ectoparasitic flatworms commonly found on the skin, gills, or fins of fish. They have a direct lifecycle and do not require an intermediate host. Adults are hermaphrodites, meaning they have both male and female reprod ...

flatworm The flatworms, flat worms, Platyhelminthes, or platyhelminths (from the Greek πλατύ, ''platy'', meaning "flat" and ἕλμινς (root: ἑλμινθ-), ''helminth-'', meaning "worm") are a phylum of relatively simple bilaterian, unsegme ...

s (e.g. ''

Microcotyle isyebi ''Microcotyle isyebi'' is a species of monogenean, parasitic on the gills of a marine fish. It belongs to the family Microcotylidae. Systematics ''Microcotyle isyebi'' was described and illustrated by Bouguerche ''et al''., based on and 31 spe ...

'' and ''

Cyclocotyla ''Cyclocotyla'' is a genus of plants first described in 1908. It contains only one known species, ''Cyclocotyla congolensis'', native to central Africa (Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic o ...

bellones'')

acanthocephala Acanthocephala (Greek , ', thorn + , ', head) is a phylum of parasitic worms known as acanthocephalans, thorny-headed worms, or spiny-headed worms, characterized by the presence of an eversible proboscis, armed with spines, which it uses to p ...

n spiny-headed worms, nematode roundworms,

isopod Isopoda is an order of crustaceans that includes woodlice and their relatives. Isopods live in the sea, in fresh water, or on land. All have rigid, segmented exoskeletons, two pairs of antennae, seven pairs of jointed limbs on the thorax, an ...

and

copepod Copepods (; meaning "oar-feet") are a group of small crustaceans found in nearly every freshwater and saltwater habitat. Some species are planktonic (inhabiting sea waters), some are benthic (living on the ocean floor), a number of species have p ...

crustaceans and

myxozoa Myxozoa (etymology: Greek: μύξα ''myxa'' "slime" or "mucus" + thematic vowel o + ζῷον ''zoon'' "animal") is a subphylum of aquatic cnidarian animals – all obligate parasites. It contains the smallest animals ever known to have lived. O ...

cnidaria Cnidaria () is a phylum under kingdom Animalia containing over 11,000 species of aquatic animals found both in Fresh water, freshwater and Marine habitats, marine environments, predominantly the latter. Their distinguishing feature is cnidocyt ...

ns to the unicellular

dinoflagellate The dinoflagellates (Greek δῖνος ''dinos'' "whirling" and Latin ''flagellum'' "whip, scourge") are a monophyletic group of single-celled eukaryotes constituting the phylum Dinoflagellata and are usually considered algae. Dinoflagellates are ...

''Ichthyodinium chabelardi'', a parasite lethal to eggs developing in ovaries. At least 67 metazoan parasite species have been reported from the species. In the aftermath of the 2002

Prestige oil spill The ''Prestige'' oil spill occurred off the coast of Galicia, Spain in November 2002, caused by the sinking of the 26-year-old, structurally deficient oil tanker , carrying 77,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil. During a storm, it burst a tank on 13 ...

, the community of parasitic species inhabiting bogue caught off the coast of Spain was noticeably altered.

References

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q950498 Sparidae Commercial fish Fish of the Atlantic Ocean Fish of the Mediterranean Sea Fish of the Black Sea Fish of the North Sea Fish described in 1758 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus