''Orthopristis chrysoptera'', the pigfish, hogfish, piggy perch, redmouth grunt or sailor's choice, is a species of marine ray-finned fish, a

grunt Grunt, grunts or grunting may refer to: Sound and music * Grunting (tennis), in tennis refers to the loud noise, sometimes described as "shrieking" or "screaming", made by some players during their strokes * Death grunt, the death metal singi ...

belonging to 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 ...

Haemulidae Haemulidae is a family (biology), family of fishes in the order (biology), order Perciformes known commonly as grunts. It is made up of the two subfamily, subfamilies Haemulinae (grunts) and Plectorhynchinae (sweetlips), which contain about 133 ...

. It is found in the western Atlantic Ocean. This name derives from the grunting or chattering noise these fish make by rubbing their

pharyngeal teeth Pharyngeal teeth are teeth in the pharyngeal arch of the throat of cyprinids, suckers, and a number of other fish species otherwise lacking teeth.dorsal fin A dorsal fin is a fin on the back of most marine and freshwater vertebrates. Dorsal fins have evolved independently several times through convergent evolution adapting to marine environments, so the fins are not all homologous. They are found ...

contains 12–13 spines and a similar number of soft rays while the anal fin has 3 spines and 12–13 soft rays, the second spine is slightly thicker and longer than the third. The entire body is covered in scales apart from the tip of the snout, lips and chin. The Pigfish is pale bluish-grey on its back and silvery on its underside. Every scale on its body has a blue center and a bronze spot on the margin, creating diagonal orange-brown stripes running up an along the flanks and back. The stripes below the lateral line are horizontal. There are bronze spots on the head and the fines are a yellowish- bronze with dusky margins. This species attains a maximum total length of , although is more typical, and the maximum recorded weight is .

Distribution

''Orthopristis chrysoptera'' is found in the western Atlantic Ocean along the east coast of the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

. Its range extends from

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

and into 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 ...

, including the Yucatan Peninsula and Cuba. It is also found in

Bermuda Bermuda is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. The closest land outside the territory is in the American state of North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. Bermuda is an ...

. A single specimen was reported off the coast of southern Sicily in 2020, likely after being transported accidentally by a ship.

Habitat and biology

''Orthopristis chrysoptera'' are found at depths between , where they can be found in estuaries and bays, sometimes entering canals, but seldom waters of very low salinity. Within these shallow waters they inhabit a range of habitats, residing over soft substrates such as sand or silt, hard substrates including jetties, reefs and oil rigs, as well as shell banks. They may be found both in coastal waters and over the

continental shelf A continental shelf is a portion of a continent that is submerged under an area of relatively shallow water, known as a shelf sea. Much of these shelves were exposed by drops in sea level during glacial periods. The shelf surrounding an islan ...

. The main

spawning Spawn is the Egg cell, eggs and Spermatozoa, sperm released or deposited into water by aquatic animals. As a verb, ''to spawn'' refers to the process of freely releasing eggs and sperm into a body of water (fresh or marine); the physical act is ...

season occurs during the Spring, starting in late winter. Spawning takes place at dusk, and may occur offshore in open waters or in more sheltered situations inshore. The larger fish typically spawn earlier in the season. All fish lose condition over this spawning season. The eggs and larvae are pelagic. Eggs hatch after only 48 hours into larvae, which become juveniles at approximately in length. The maximum reported age of the Pigfish is 4 years, but most only live to 3 years of age. Pigfish are predatory fish, emerging from shelters to feed at night. Their main prey is benthic invertebrates. As with many species of predatory fish, prey size increases with the size of the fish. Younger fish typically feed on planktonic crustaceans while larger fish feed on polychaetes, larger crustaceans, molluscs and smaller fish. They have even been recorded eating insect larvae in brackish waters. Pigfish are a migratory species and thus move offshore during the winter to reside in warmer, deeper water. When they return inshore in the Springtime they are often found in poor condition, suggesting that the offshore food supply is of low quality. They also undertake shorter distance migrations to and from feeding areas and shelters on a daily basis. The pigfish likely gets its name from the chattering noises they create when they are captured. The pigfish creates this grunting noise by rubbing its pharyngeal teeth together, in the same manner as the other grunt species. When feeding, pigfish use these teeth to grind up shellfish and small bits of other food.

Systematics

''Orthopristis chrysoptera'' was first formally described as ''Perca chrysoptera'' in 1758 by Carolus Linnaeus with the type locality given as Carolina. It is now thought this means the Bahamas or

South Carolina South Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders North Carolina to the north and northeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, and Georgia (U.S. state), Georg ...

. When Charles Frédéric Gerard described ''Orthopristis duplex'' in 1858 he placed it in a new

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 ...

. This taxon was later shown to be a junior synonym of Linnaeus's ''P. chrysoptera'', so this species is the

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

of the genus '' Orthopristis''. The

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

''chrysoptera'' means "golden-finned." Linnaeus did not explain this, but it may refer to the row of bronze spots on the dorsal fin or the yellowish paired fins.

Utilisation

''Orthopristis chrysoptera'' is caught using hook and line, traps and seines. The catch is not recorded separately for this species. The flesh is normally sold fresh. It is often caught to be used as bait in angling and commercial fisheries for other, larger fish such as the spotted sea trout (''Cynoscion nebulosus'').

References

# Ohs, C.L., DiMaggio, M.A., Grabe, S.W. “Species Profile: Pigfish ''Orthopristis chrysoptera''. Southern Regional Aquaculture Center, United States Department of Agriculture.

External links

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission – Pigfish
{{Taxonbar, from=Q2383492 chrysoptera Fish described in 1766 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus