Boops boops

Author: Linnaeus, 1 758

Boops boops Linnaeus, 1758

Status in World Register of Marine Species:
Accepted name: Boops boops (Linnaeus, 1758) (updated 2009-06-25)

Diagnosis: body elongately fusiform, moderately compressed; anterior section subcircular; eye large, diameter longer than snout; occipital scales extending slightly before posterior margin of eye. Mouth small oblique; lips very thin; teeth incisiform, uniserial in both jaws; upper, teeth quadridentate, lower quindentate with median point largest Gillrakers 16-20 lower, 7-8 upper. D XIII-XV + 12-16; A III + 14-16; pectoral fin short, ending before anus. Lateral line scales 69-80 to caudal base. Colour: back greenish or bluish, sides silvery or golden with 3-5 longitudinal golden lines; small dark spot at the pectoral axil; lateral line dark; fins light. Size: to 36 cm, usually 15-20 cm.

Habitat: inshore waters, demersal or semipelagic above various bottoms (sand, mud, rocks, Posidonia beds), to 200 m (Mediterranean) or 300 m (Atlantic). Gregarious, moving up to the surface during the night. Food: omnivorous (young mostly carnivorous, adults mostly herbivorous). Reproduction: February-April (eastern Mediterranean), April-May (western Mediterranean), March-May (Atlantic), summer (Black Sea); hermaphroditic (generally protogynous); fecundity 395,000 (TL 32 cm); maturity at 1 year (about 13 cm) in western Mediterranean; sex ratio about 60% females at 10-25 cm.

Distribution: whole of Mediterranean, rare in Black Sea; eastern Atlantic from Norway (occasional) to Angola, and oceanic islands; common from Bay of Biscay to Gibraltar. Elsewhere, western Atlantic in Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea.

Eggs, larvae and young stages. Raffaele, 1888: 24-76, pl. 1 (fig. 10) | Holt, 1899b: 20 | Lo Bianco, 1909: 699 | Bounhiol and Pron, 1916: 143 | Ranzi, 1930: 407-416; 1933: 366, fig. 259, pl. 29 (fig. 1-7) | de Gaetani, 1937a: 1-14, 10 fig. | Vodjanitzki and Kazanova, 1954: 271, fig. 24, 10 fig.
Otoliths (sagitta). Sanz Echeverría, 1926: 154, fig. 50; 1930: 176, fig. 26 | Chaine, 1937: 189, pl. 17.