Author: Rafinesque-Schmaltz, 1810
Dentex (Cheimerius) gibbosus Rafinesque-Schmaltz, 1810
Status in World Register of Marine Species:
Accepted name: Dentex (Cheimerius) gibbosus (Rafinesque, 1810) (updated 2009-06-25)
Diagnosis: upper profile of head regularly convex in the young, strong hump on the forehead in the largest specimens. Gillrakers 8-10 lower, 6-8 upper. D XII + 10-11; A III + 7-9; two first dorsal spines very short, the two or three following very long and filamentous in the young; first pelvic ray filamentous. Lateral line scales 56-62 to caudal base. Colour: reddish-silver; a little black spot behind the posterior end of dorsal fin; small dark areas at the pectoral axil and at the upper opercular margin; caudal fin pink, with a narrow black margin. Size: to100 cm SL, usually 35-60 cm.
Habitat: inshore waters on rocky bottoms and sand around rocks between 20 and 220 m; young closer to the shore than the adults. Food: carnivorous (crustaceans, fish, cephalopods). Reproduction: during spring (Mediterranean); hermaphroditic (protandrous, 50-70% males up to 50 cm).
Distribution: Mediterranean, more common south of 40° N and in the eastern Mediterranean. absent in Golfe du Lion and in Black Sea; Atlantic from Portugal to Angola, abundant only from Cape Juby to Cape Verde.
Eggs, larvae and young stages. No data.
Otoliths (sagitta). Chaine, 1937: 58, pl. 6 | Sanz Echeverría, 1943: 11, pl. I (fig. 7-14).