---
title: Striped Mullet (Mugil cephalus)
scientific_name: Mugil cephalus
common_name: Striped Mullet
taxon: Mullets
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-10-26T22:14:55.216Z
updated: 2026-08-13T12:14:22.804Z
tags: Striped Mullet, Mugil cephalus, Mullets, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/mullets/striped-mullet
---

# Striped Mullet (*Mugil cephalus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Mullets (*Mugilidae*)
- **Size:** up to 75 cm
- **Weight:** 8 Kg
- **Depth:** 0-20 m
- **Diet:** Detritivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Shallow coast, harbors, lagoons and brackish water
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- torpedo-shaped silver fish with a broad flat head and a small mouth
- large scales with dark centers, forming faint stripes along the flank
- in schools at the surface, often jumping clear of the water for no visible reason
- length up to 75 cm

A blunt-headed silver fish in schools at the surface of harbors and lagoons, jumping clear of the water repeatedly for reasons nobody has settled - escaping predators, shedding parasites and gulping air have all been proposed and none of them explains all the jumping.

It eats mud. Mullet take mouthfuls of sediment and biofilm, and process them in a muscular gizzard - a grinding stomach like a bird's, complete with the sand it swallows as grit - then run the result through an unusually long intestine. Almost no other fish digests this way, and it lets the species live on material nothing else competes for.

It handles fresh water. Mullet move far up rivers and sit in brackish lagoons at salinities that would kill a reef fish, which is why they are the fish of harbors, canals and river mouths everywhere in the warm world.

They have been farmed since antiquity, the roe is salted and pressed into bottarga, and the species is one of the oldest managed food fishes in the Mediterranean basin - a plain gray fish with a very long human history.

## Also known as

- **English:** flathead grey mullet, Black True Mullet, flathead mullet, grey mullet
- **Arabic:** Anubah, Araaby, Asfatiya
- **French:** meuille, muge, muge cephale
- **Italian:** cefalo, Cefalo mazzone, Cefalo verace
- **German:** großkopf Meeräsche, Gemeine Meeräsche, Großkopfmeeräsche
- **Spanish:** lisa rayada, mújol, pardete
- **Greek:** Cephalos
- **Turkish:** Avrita baliği, Haskefal baligi, Haskefal baliği
- **Portuguese:** Cagarraz, Cambiro, Curemà
- **Dutch:** Diklipharder
- **Swedish:** Grå multe
- **Polish:** Mugil australijski, Mugil cefal
- **Japanese:** Bora
- **Ukrainian:** Кефаль лобань, Кефаль-лобан
- **Russian:** Кефаль лобан, лобан, черная кефаль
- **CA:** Cap Pla
- **DA:** Multe
- **FI:** Juovakeltti
- **HR:** Cipal bataš
- **IS:** Röndungur
- **MLT:** Mulett ta' l'imcarrta, Mulett ta' l'iswed, Kaplat
- **MRI:** Kanae
- **NO:** Multe
- **RO:** Chefal, Laban
- **SL:** Glavati cipelj
- **SQI:** Qefulli i veres, Qefulli i verës
- **SR:** Cipal glavas, Cipol glavaš, Cipli
- **VI:** Cá Dối Mục

## Scientific synonyms

- *Arnion cephalus* (Linnaeus, 1758)
- *Ello cephalus* (Linnaeus, 1758)
- *Mugil albula* Linnaeus, 1766
- *Mugil ashanteensis* Bleeker, 1863
- *Mugil cephalas* Linnaeus, 1758
- *Mugil cephalotus* Valenciennes, 1836
- *Mugil cephalus ashanteensis* Bleeker, 1863
- *Mugil cephalus cephalus* Linnaeus, 1758
- *Mugil cephalus rammelsbergi* Tschudi, 1846
- *Mugil crenilabis our* Forsskål, 1775
- *Mugil dobula* Günther, 1861
- *Mugil gelatinosus* Klunzinger, 1872
- *Mugil grandis* Castelnau, 1879
- *Mugil hypselosoma* Ogilby, 1897
- *Mugil japonicus* Temminck & Schlegel, 1845
- *Mugil lineatus* Valenciennes, 1836
- *Mugil mexicanus* Steindachner, 1876
- *Mugil muelleri* Klunzinger, 1879
- *Mugil mulleri* Klunzinger, 1879
- *Mugil mülleri* Klunzinger, 1879
- *Mugil our* Forsskål, 1775
- *Mugil peruanus* Hildebrand, 1946
- *Mugil provensalis* Risso, 1810
- *Mugil rammelsbergii* Tschudi, 1846
- *Mugil tang* Bloch, 1794

## Range

Australia, Black Sea, Egypt, Federal Republic of Somalia, Gulf of Mexico, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Madagascar, Mediterranean Sea - Eastern Basin, Mozambique, New Zealand, North Atlantic Ocean, North Sea, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Western Indian Ocean

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/mullets/striped-mullet)*
*Updated: August 13, 2026*