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Pink dentex: the rose-coloured dentex with the forehead hump — and why nobody knows for sure what sex it starts out as

The well-known common dentex (*Dentex dentex*) has a bigger, pink relative in the Mediterranean that gets shown far less often: *Dentex gibbosus* — in English the pink dentex, in German Dickkopf-Zahnbrasse (FishBase, EUNIS), in Italian dentice corazziere or dentice dalla corona, in French gros denté rose, denté bossu or denté à long fil, in Spanish sama de pluma, in Catalan corcovada, in Portuguese capatão-de-bandeira or dentão-de-bandeira, in Dutch bultige tandbrasem, in Greek φαγγρί κορωνάτο or τσαούσης, in Croatian zubatac krunaš or krunaš, in Slovenian kronski zobatec, in Albanian dentali i trëndafiltë, in Turkish trança and in Ukrainian зубан рожевий (FishBase, GBIF, Wikipedia). FishBase's list of names also includes rød havrude, apparently Danish — although the language isn't stated there. For Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Russian, Japanese and Arabic we found no confirmed species name in GBIF, FishBase or Wikidata. Here's how to recognise it, where it lives, what it eats — and why the sources can't even agree on whether males turn into females or the other way round.

Named after a hump

It was described by the naturalist Constantine Samuel Rafinesque in 1810, at the time as *Sparus gibbosus*, based on specimens from Sicily (English Wikipedia). The species name *gibbosus* means “humped” and refers to the bulging forehead of large fish (English and Catalan Wikipedia) — which is also where the German “Dickkopf” (“thick head”), the Italian “corazziere” and the French “bossu” come from. In the literature it also turns up as *Dentex filosus* and *Cheimerius filosus* (Valenciennes, 1841; English, French and Catalan Wikipedia). It belongs to the sea bream family (Sparidae) and, according to FishBase, is harmless to humans.

How to recognise it

  • The shape: an oval, somewhat elongated, laterally compressed body (English and French Wikipedia). Young fish have an evenly rounded head profile; in large fish a forehead hump grows on the front of the head (English Wikipedia).
  • The juveniles' filaments: Up to about 25 cm, according to Italian Wikipedia, the 3rd to 5th dorsal fin rays are elongated and filament-like; in adults, by contrast, the first two rays are very short. That fits the French name denté à long fil — “dentex with the long thread”.
  • The teeth: several rows of canine-like teeth, the front 4–6 being the largest (English Wikipedia); Greek Wikipedia counts 4 upper and 6 lower fangs at the front, with small pointed teeth behind them.
  • The colour: reddish with a blue-silver sheen, the belly paler, the head darker (English and French Wikipedia). Large fish are often a dark wine red, and very large ones, according to Italian Wikipedia, even grey. According to English Wikipedia, males have black spots on the head, females greyish ones.
  • The markings: a black spot behind the dorsal fin and a red tail fin with a black edge (English Wikipedia).
  • The fins: dorsal fin with 12 spines and 10–11 soft rays, anal fin with 3 spines and 7–9 soft rays, 56–62 scales along the lateral line (English and French Wikipedia).
  • The size: around 60 cm is typical according to FishBase, 50–75 cm according to French Wikipedia; the maximum is 106 cm fork length and 16.4 kg (FishBase).

Where it lives

Its range is the eastern Atlantic from Portugal to Angola, including Madeira, the Canary Islands and São Tomé and Príncipe, plus the Mediterranean (English Wikipedia, FishBase); FishBase gives the bounds as 46° North to 17° South. According to English Wikipedia, it is absent from the Mediterranean only in the northwest and the northern Adriatic. In Italian waters it is rather rare according to Italian Wikipedia, a little more common in the south.

It lives at depths of 20 to 220 m on the continental shelf (FishBase, English and Catalan Wikipedia), mostly between 40 and 130 m (French Wikipedia), over rock, rubble and sand near rocks (FishBase); Italian Wikipedia mentions rocky and coralligenous bottoms at 50 to 200 m. Juveniles stay close to the coast, while adults move further out, towards the continental slope (FishBase, English and French Wikipedia). What that means for you: you won't find big pink dentex along the shoreline, but where the bottom drops away into deep water.

What it eats

It's a predator: fish, cephalopods and crustaceans (FishBase, English, French and Greek Wikipedia); Italian Wikipedia puts fish first. FishBase places it at trophic level 4.1 — high up the food chain, at the level of the predatory fish.

Male or female — the sources don't know

In many sea breams, sex changes over the course of a lifetime. In the pink dentex, not even the direction is clear. According to FishBase, up to about 50 cm most fish — 50–70% — are males, after which they become females; French Wikipedia accordingly calls it a protandrous hermaphrodite, i.e. “male first, then female”. English Wikipedia, on the other hand, describes it, depending on the region, as a rudimentary, a protogynous (“female first”) and a protandrous hermaphrodite. Greek Wikipedia only says that it is hermaphroditic.

According to FishBase it reaches sexual maturity at 34.7 cm on average, according to Greek Wikipedia at around 40 cm. Spawning takes place from April to September according to English Wikipedia; Greek Wikipedia gives August to October for the Adriatic and April to September for the Canary Islands, while French Wikipedia simply says spring. Either way, a big fish is an old fish — if you release a large pink dentex carefully, you leave the stock an animal that took a long time to grow. That's not a regulation, it's our recommendation.

On the hook and on the plate

FishBase lists it as a commercial food fish and a game fish. English Wikipedia names well-known fishing areas: the Balearic Islands, the Costa del Sol, Tarifa, the French Mediterranean coast, Sardinia, Sicily, Naples, Montenegro and Morocco. According to Italian Wikipedia it is sought after but rare among recreational and commercial fishermen; it is caught with bottom lines, trolling lines, longlines and trawls, according to French Wikipedia also with gillnets, traps and handlines, and juveniles, according to Greek Wikipedia, also with pots.

Its flesh is considered excellent, similar to that of the common dentex (Italian Wikipedia, citing Alan Davidson, 1972; English Wikipedia: “very tasty”). According to English and French Wikipedia it is regularly on the market in Israel (and, according to French Wikipedia, in Palestine), only occasionally in Sicily, Greece and Morocco. FishBase puts it in the medium price category. According to Greek Wikipedia it has already been bred experimentally in aquaculture and is considered a candidate for commercial farming.

Status — and what you can do

On the IUCN Red List it is classed as Least Concern (FishBase, English Wikipedia). According to English Wikipedia it is not intensively fished commercially. Even so, FishBase rates its vulnerability to fishing as high (60 out of 100) and its resilience as medium — according to FishBase, a population needs 1.4 to 4.4 years to double.

Whether a minimum size, a closed season or a catch ban applies to it is set by national and regional regulations — there's no universal figure, and we deliberately don't give one. Check locally what currently applies, especially in marine protected areas.

Seven contradictions in the sources

  • Male first or female first? FishBase and French Wikipedia: male first, female from about 50 cm. English Wikipedia: both, depending on the region — protogynous and protandrous.
  • Who gets the hump? English and Italian Wikipedia: large adult fish. Catalan and Greek Wikipedia: the (large) males. Since, according to FishBase, the large fish tend to be females, these statements don't fit together well.
  • What colour is the spot at the pectoral fin? English Wikipedia: brownish black, French: dark brown. Greek Wikipedia: a large blue marking.
  • When does it mature? FishBase: at 34.7 cm on average. Greek Wikipedia: at around 40 cm.
  • When does it spawn? English Wikipedia: April to September. French: in spring. Greek: in the Adriatic August to October, in the Canary Islands April to September — possibly the spawning season simply depends on the region.
  • How old does it get? FishBase reckons with a maximum age of 7 years. Greek Wikipedia estimates its life expectancy at 20 years.
  • When was its IUCN status assessed? FishBase gives 18 August 2009, English Wikipedia an assessment from 2014 (Russell, Carpenter and Pollard). On the result both agree: Least Concern.

Four traps with the name

  • “Dentón”, “dentice”, “зубан” on their own mean the other species. In Spain, databases do list dentón for it too — but that's primarily the name of the ordinary common dentex (*Dentex dentex*). The same goes for the Italian dentice without a qualifier and the Russian зубан. Only the qualifier is reliable: sama de pluma, dentice corazziere, зубан рожевий.
  • “Pargo”, “pagre”, “φαγγρί” actually mean the red porgy. Portuguese pargo, French pagre royal, Greek φαγγρί κορωνάτο and Sicilian pauru all borrow the name of the red porgy (*Pagrus pagrus*). Without the qualifier — κορωνάτο, “crowned” — a different fish is meant at the market.
  • Only one German name. Dickkopf-Zahnbrasse appears in FishBase and EUNIS; there's no German Wikipedia page. And with names in general: if you want to be sure, use *Dentex gibbosus*.
  • “Porgy” is not a species name. Some databases also give porgy as an English name — but in English that's what lots of sea breams are called. The unambiguous English name is pink dentex.

Which leaves the question every article in this series starts with: when. With a fish that, as an adult, sits far out over rock and rubble edges at the shelf break and rarely takes a bait, picking the right day matters more than any rig. Habitat, prey and spawning season are set out above, and they're fixed. What changes every day are the conditions on your water — StrikeAhead works that out and tells you when the trip is worth it. And because you don't know the edges and rules of unfamiliar waters from day one, StrikeAhead Pathfinder tells you who to go out with: curated guides and skippers, personally vetted before listing — licence and insurance —, with verified catches instead of promo photos, no paid ranking and, for you as an angler, no booking fee. The app tells you when, Pathfinder with whom.