The red porgy (''Pagrus pagrus''), also known as the common seabream or Couch's bream, is a species of marine

ray-finned fish Actinopterygii (; ), members of which are known as ray-finned fish or actinopterygians, is a class of bony fish that comprise over 50% of living vertebrate species. They are so called because of their lightly built fins made of webbings of sk ...

in the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Sparidae Sparidae is a family of ray-finned fishes belonging to the order Spariformes, the seabreams and porgies, although they were traditionally classified in the order Perciformes. The over 150 species are found in shallow and deep marine waters in t ...

. It is found in shallow waters on either side of the Atlantic Ocean, being present on the western coast of Europe and the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern Eur ...

as well as the eastern coasts of North and South America and the

Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere, located south of the Gulf of Mexico and southwest of the Sargasso Sea. It is bounded by the Greater Antilles to the north from Cuba ...

. It feeds on or near the seabed and most individuals start life as females and later change sex to males.

Taxonomy

This fish was first described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

in the tenth edition of his System Naturae. He gave it the name ''Sparus pagrus'' but it has since been moved to the

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

Pagrus ''Pagrus'' is a genus of marine ray-finned fishes belonging to the family Sparidae, which includes the seabreams and porgies. These fishes are found in the Western Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. They are esteemed food fish ...

''. Common names given to this fish include red porgy, common seabream and porgy. Along the Gulf Coast, it is known as the white snapper, even though it is not a true snapper. In the United Kingdom, it is known as Couch's seabream after the Cornish ichthyologist Dr.

Jonathan Couch Jonathan Couch (15 March 1789 – 13 April 1870) was a British naturalist, the only child of Richard and Philippa Couch, of a family long resident at Polperro, a small fishing village between Looe and Fowey, on the south coast of Cornwall. A ...

who first discovered this species in the waters around Britain.

Description

The red porgy is a moderately deep-bodied fish with an oblong shaped body. The standard length is , although a more typical length is about half of this. The dorsal fin has eleven to thirteen spines and nine to ten soft rays while the anal fin has three spines and seven to eight soft rays. This fish is a silvery-pink colour, with darker patches on the nape and behind the pectoral fins. The caudal fin is dark pink with paler tips, and the other fins are pale pink.

Distribution and habitat

The red porgy is found in warm coastal waters on either side of the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

. On the eastern side, its range extends from southern Britain to Western Sahara, including the waters around the Canary Islands and Madeira and the

; its range includes the

Sea of Marmara The Sea of Marmara, also known as the Sea of Marmora or the Marmara Sea, is a small inland sea entirely within the borders of Turkey. It links the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea via the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits, separating Turkey's E ...

but does not extend into the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bound ...

. On the western side of the Atlantic, its range extends from the eastern coast of the United States southward to Argentina; it is present in the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico () is an oceanic basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, mostly surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States; on the southw ...

and the western part of the

but not the eastern part. Although it may go as deep as , it more commonly occurs at depths between , on continental shelves. It is 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 layer o ...

species, being found over both rocky areas and areas with soft sediment; juveniles often inhabit beds of

seagrass Seagrasses are the only flowering plants which grow in marine (ocean), marine environments. There are about 60 species of fully marine seagrasses which belong to four Family (biology), families (Posidoniaceae, Zosteraceae, Hydrocharitaceae and ...

or sometimes enter lagoons.

Ecology

Red porgies are

fish, feeding mostly on or near the seabed on

crustacean Crustaceans (from Latin meaning: "those with shells" or "crusted ones") are invertebrate animals that constitute one group of arthropods that are traditionally a part of the subphylum Crustacea (), a large, diverse group of mainly aquatic arthrop ...

mollusc Mollusca is a phylum of protostome, protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant taxon, extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum ...

s and small fish. They are

protogynous hermaphrodite Sequential hermaphroditism (called dichogamy in botany) is one of the two types of hermaphroditism, the other type being simultaneous hermaphroditism. It occurs when the organism's sex changes at some point in its life. A sequential hermaphrodite ...

s, with most individuals starting life as females and at some point changing sex to males. The fish reach sexual maturity at two or three years of age. The sex change occurs at a wide range of sizes ( TL) and a wide range of ages (two to nine years). Not all fish change sex: some fish are primary males whose ovarian tissue atrophies before they reach maturity, others are secondary males, behaving as females for a few cycles before changing sex, and some remain as females even when large, with only rudimentary male tissue being present. There is some evidence that the timing of the sex change is linked to social or environmental factors.

Status

The red porgy is an important species for both commercial and recreational fishing, especially on the southeastern coast of the United States, Argentina, and the Mediterranean Sea. It is usually taken by rod and line. Populations have declined because of over-exploitation, but in some areas minimum size limits have been set to try to redress this. Stocks have also been augmented by the use of

aquaculture Aquaculture (less commonly spelled aquiculture), also known as aquafarming, is the controlled cultivation ("farming") of aquatic organisms such as fish, crustaceans, mollusks, algae and other organisms of value such as aquatic plants (e.g. Nelu ...

, particularly in the Mediterranean, and aquaculture is being considered in North America. Despite the population declines in some areas and the fish's complex biological needs, overall, it is not at risk of

extinction Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

and the

International Union for Conservation of Nature The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the stat ...

has assessed its conservation status as being of "

least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been evaluated and categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as not being a focus of wildlife conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wil ...

References

External links

* {{Authority control Pagrus Fish of the Atlantic Ocean Fish of the Mediterranean Sea Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Fish described in 1758 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot