A silver seabream to 80 cm (31 in) with fine gold lines along the scale rows and yellow lower fins. It works shallow rocky coast, harbors and estuary mouths, which is where most people meet it - on a line rather than on a dive.
It crushes for a living. Behind small front teeth sit rows of heavy molars that open barnacles, mussels, urchins and crabs, so the fish thrives on exactly the fouling community that grows on breakwaters, pontoons and pilings.
Sex runs the other way from most reef fish. This species is protandrous: fish mature as males and the larger ones become females later, which is the opposite of the wrasses and groupers and means the biggest fish in the population are the egg producers. Fishing that takes the largest individuals therefore removes the females.
It tolerates low salinity well enough to enter estuaries and lagoons, and juveniles use them as nurseries - one of the reasons this species holds up around developed coast where more reef-bound fish disappear.
The genus. Rhabdosargus Fowler 1933 - rhabdos (rod or stick). ETYFish
The species. Rhabdosargus sarba (Gmelin 1789) - Arabic name for this fish. ETYFish
- silver body with fine gold lines running along the scale rows
- yellow pelvic and anal fins, dark edge to the tail
- small mouth with strong molars behind, often nosing at the bottom
- length up to 80 cm
Why it's threatened
The main threats to populations of Rhabdosargus sarba include habitat destruction (especially of the estuarine habitat), pollution of shallow coastal waters and overfishing (James et al. 2004).
Threat classification from the IUCN Red List.
