---
title: Karanteen Seabream (Crenidens crenidens)
scientific_name: Crenidens crenidens
common_name: Karanteen Seabream
taxon: Sea breams
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-13T15:19:54.043Z
updated: 2026-09-03T21:28:15.768Z
tags: Karanteen Seabream, Crenidens crenidens, Sea breams, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/sea-breams/karanteen-seabream
---

# Karanteen Seabream (*Crenidens crenidens*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Sea breams (*Sparidae*)
- **Size:** up to 30 cm
- **Diet:** Herbivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Habitat:** Shallow coastal water over sand and seagrass, in quiet muddy places
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- front teeth notched into five points each, giving the row a wavy edge
- silvery green to olive, with narrow dark stripes along the scale rows above the pectoral fin
- dull yellowish fins with a dark margin to the dorsal
- over quiet sand and seagrass rather than on coral
- up to 30 cm

The teeth are the name. Each of the eight or nine front teeth in the upper jaw ends not in a point but in five small ones, so the working edge of the mouth is a row of notched blades rather than a row of pegs - and the genus is called Crenidens, from the Latin for a clipped or notched tooth. Behind that front row the teeth turn granular, for grinding what the front row has cut.

It is equipment for a specific job. The fish crops algae off sand, seagrass and rubble in quiet, muddy shallows, and takes small crustaceans and worms along with it; the notched edge shears the growth off rather than scraping the surface the way a parrotfish does.

Forsskal described it in 1775 from Jeddah, which makes this coast its type locality - the third fish in this catalogue whose scientific record starts on this shore, beside the Picasso triggerfish and the blackspot emperor, all from the same expedition.

And it has been traveling. In 1970 it turned up in the Bardawil Lagoon on the northern coast of Egypt, on the wrong side of the Suez Canal, and it has since spread to Israel and Libya. The Mediterranean fish stay smaller: about 20 cm against 30 at home.

Silvery green to olive, with narrow dark stripes along the scale rows above the pectoral fin, dull yellow fins and a dark edge to the dorsal.

## Also known as

- **English:** Karenteen seabream, Karanteen Seabream, Karateen Seabream
- **French:** Saupe De Mer Rouge
- **German:** Karanteen
- **Spanish:** Salema Del Mar Rojo
- **Czech:** mořan lesklý
- **Chinese:** 波牙鯛
- **Russian:** Восточноафриканский бурозубый морской карась

## Scientific synonyms

- *Crenidens forskali* Valenciennes, 1830
- *Crenidens forskalii* Valenciennes, 1830
- *Sparus crenidens* Forsskål, 1775

## Range

Djibouti, Eritrea, Federal Republic of Somalia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mediterranean Sea - Eastern Basin, Mozambique, North Atlantic Ocean, Red Sea, South Africa, Tanzania

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/sea-breams/karanteen-seabream)*
*Updated: September 3, 2026*