Species: Calamus penna, Sheepshead porgy
top jaw slightly projecting
dark bar: eye to mouth
no enlarged canines
Calamus penna (Valenciennes, 1830)
Sheepshead porgy
Body deep, compressed; head deep, upper profile evenly convex, not steep; snout blunt, not very steep; rear nostril elongate to slit-like; mouth moderately large, reaches under front of eye; top jaw projects slightly beyond bottom jaw; top lip divided into 2 almost equal halves by a horizontal groove; bone under front of eye overlaps rear bone of top jaw; both jaws with equal-sized (none enlarged) canines at front, sides of jaws with molar teeth (3 rows above, 2 below); preopercle border smooth; dorsal fin low, XIII, 12 rays; anal fin short, III short spines, 10-11 soft rays; pectoral fin 15 (rarely 14 or 16) rays, fin not very long, may just reach origin of anal fin; cheeks and opercles scaly, but no scales on snout or between the eye and mouth; lateral line scales 45-49.
Silvery, scales with iridescent lavender, blue and yellow reflections; usually faint stripes along body; sometimes a blue-grey line under eye, no other blue or yellow markings on head; a dark brown bar under eye; a small black spot at upper base of pectoral fin blackish; live fish may have ~7 dark bars.
Size: to 46 cm.
Habitat: mainly on hard bottoms
Depth: 3-128 m.
N Carolina to Brazil.
High Resolution Map Download
- Salinity
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- Marine
- Marine Only
- Inshore/Offshore
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- Inshore
- Inshore Only
- Water Column Position
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- Bottom
- Habitat
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- Reef and soft bottom
- Rocks
- Reef (rock/coral/oyster)
- Sand & gravel
- Reef associated (reef + edges-water column & soft bottom)
- Mud
- Soft bottom (mud/sand/gravel/beach/estuary/mangrove/seagrass)
- FishBase Habitat
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- Demersal
- Reef Associated
- Feeding Group
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- Carnivore
- Data
- Diet
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- Mobile benthic crustacea (shrimps/crabs)
- Mobile benthic worms
- Mobile benthic gastropods/bivalves
- Sea-stars/cucumbers/urchins
- Data
- Egg Type
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- Pelagic larva
- Data
- Pelagic
- Global Endemism
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- All species.
- West Atlantic Endemic
- Greater Caribbean non-endemic
- Regional Endemism
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- Continent + Island (s)
- Island (s)
- Continent
- All species..
- GC non-endemic
- Also in Brazil
- Extends South of GC
- Residency
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- Resident
- Climate Zone
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- Tropical (10-23N, Nicaragua / Cuba)
- Equatorial (0-10N, Costa Rica / Venezuela)
- Subtropical (23-35N, Florida / Carolinas / Bermuda)
- IUCN Red List
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- Listed
- Least concern
- CITES
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- Not listed
- Length Max
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- 46
- Depth Range Min
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- 3
- Depth Range Max
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- 128
