Latin name

Serranus cabrilla

Other name

Serranus cabrilla

Identification

The body of the comber is elongated, relatively low, and covered with ctenoid scales. 

Features of fish fins

The dorsal fin has 10 barb rays and 13-15 soft rays. The anal fin has 3 barb rays and 7-8 soft rays. Caudal fin weakly emarginate. 

Fish colouring

Body coloration is yellowish gray or reddish. The upper part of the body has 8-9 brown horizontal stripes. The underside of the body has 2-3 yellowish or reddish vertical stripes. The head has oblique red or orange stripes. Dorsal, anal and caudal fins with bright spots. 

Distribution

Widespread in the eastern Atlantic Ocean from the British Isles to the Cape of Good Hope, including the Azores, Canary Islands, Madeira Archipelago, and the Mediterranean, Aegean, Marmara and Black Seas.

Habitat

Deep sea bottom fish. Lives at depths of 5-500 m on rocky, sandy and pebbly substrates.

Size

These fish range in size from 5 to 25 centimeters, with a maximum body length of 40 centimeters.

Behavior

Occurs on the shelf and upper slope on rocks, pocidonia thickets, sandy and muddy bottoms. It is solitary and territorial.

Food and feeding habits

Comber feeds on fish, cephalopods and crustaceans.

Reproduction

They spawn from May to July and are hermaphroditic, sexually mature fish with both ovaries and testes. They are capable of being both male and female, and self-fertilization has been known to occur when the fish could not find a spawning partner. Sexual maturity occurs when the fish reaches a length of 152 millimeters (6.0 inches).

Fishing

Comber has low commercial value.

Relationship with a person

Harmless. It is consumed as food and also processed into fish meal.