Author: (Linnaeus, 1758)
Umbrina cirrosa (Linnaeus, 1758)
Status in World Register of Marine Species:
Accepted name: Umbrina cirrosa (Linnaeus, 1758) (updated 2009-06-25)
Diagnosis: body moderately elongate, deep and compressed; mouth small, inferior, teeth villiform; chin with a short and rigid barbel, perforated by a pore at its tip. Dl IX-X; D2 I + 23-25. A II + 7-8. Caudal fin truncate to slight emarginate. Scales ctenoid except on breast, snout and sub-orbital region, where they are mostly cycloid. Swimbladder simple, carrot-shaped, without appendages. Colour: greyish-silver to brownish, with a metallic hue and longitudinal dark lines on back and upper sides; membranes on hind margin of gill cover jet black; fins dusky. Size: to 70 cm SL, common to 40 cm.
Habitat: inshore waters, over rocky and sand bottoms from shoreline to about 100 m depth; juveniles often found in estuaries. Food: mainly bottom invertebrates. Reproduction: spawning in spring and summer in Mediterranean and Black Sea.
Distribution: eastern Atlantic, coasts of Europe and Africa from Bay of Biscay to Senegal, including the Canaries; also throughout Mediterranean, Black Sea and Sea of Azov, penetrating Suez Canal to Gulf of Suez.
Eggs, larvae and young stages. Holt, 1899: 21 (ovarian egg) | Montalenti, 1937: 403, pl. XXXII (fig. 10-17) | Vodjanitzki and Kazanova, 1954: 309, fig. 5°1 Banarescu, 1964: fig. 314 (after Vodjanitzki and Kazanova).
Otoliths (sagitta). Schubert, 1902: 303, pl. X (fig. 2) | Sanz Echeverría, 1926: 155, fig. 34; 1931: 373, pl. II (fig. 17) | Chaine, 1938: 53, pl. VII (part., see U. canariensis) | Weiler, 1968: 122.