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Redbanded seabream (Pagrus auriga): the seabream with the red bands — and four different maximum sizes

As a juvenile it wears bright red crossbands, as an old fish it is almost uniformly pink — and depending on the source it grows to 75, 80 or 90 cm. *Pagrus auriga* is a seabream, a close relative of the red porgy (*Pagrus pagrus*). In English it is called redbanded seabream; in Spanish hurta or urta, also sama roquera and pargo sémola; in Italian pagro reale, in French pagre rayé, in Portuguese pargo-sêmola, in Catalan pagre de bandes, in Dutch roodgestreepte goudbrasem, in Danish rødbåndet havrude, in Finnish punaraitapargo, in Turkish çizgili mercan (GBIF, Spanish, Italian and Catalan Wikipedia). In German, GBIF lists it as Rotbandbrasse. Here is how to recognise it, where it lives, what it eats — and what the sources say about the when, and what they don’t.

Name and origin: the “charioteer” from the eastern Atlantic

It was described by the French zoologist Achille Valenciennes in 1843 (FishBase, GBIF). The genus name *Pagrus* goes back to the Greek *pagros*, an old fish name (FishBase). The species name *auriga* is Latin and means charioteer; why Valenciennes chose it, none of the sources read here explains. Its home is the eastern Atlantic: from Portugal to Angola, plus Madeira, the Canary Islands and the south-western Mediterranean (FishBase). Spanish Wikipedia calls it common on the coast of Cádiz and in the Canaries — but rare on El Hierro.

How to recognise it

  • Red crossbands — above all in young fish. Italian Wikipedia describes 5 to 7 broad, bright red crossbands on the flanks of juveniles, of unequal width; adults, it says, become increasingly uniformly pink. Spanish Wikipedia counts 4 to 5 reddish-brown bands and gives the ground colour of freshly caught fish as pink to wine-red.
  • Deeper-bodied than the red porgy. In outline it resembles *Pagrus pagrus*, but the body is deeper (Italian Wikipedia).
  • Two long filaments on the back — in juveniles. Young fish have two greatly elongated rays in the dorsal fin (Italian Wikipedia). Together with the red bands, that is the best field mark.
  • Size: around 30 cm is usual; the maximum lies between 75 and 90 cm, depending on the source (see below).
  • Flesh: white and firm (Spanish Wikipedia).

Where it lives in the Mediterranean

The redbanded seabream is not an immigrant through the Suez Canal but an Atlantic species that reaches the Mediterranean from the west. How far in it extends, the sources describe differently (see below). Adult fish live over hard bottom — rock or rubble —, juveniles close to the coast (FishBase); Spanish Wikipedia also mentions mixed sand-and-rock bottoms. According to Italian Wikipedia, young fish often hold in shallow water, old specimens deep. FishBase lists it as living close to the bottom (benthopelagic) and as a species that migrates within the sea.

What it eats — and what is known about the when

  • A predator on the bottom. It feeds mainly on molluscs, including squid, cuttlefish and other cephalopods, and on crustaceans (FishBase); Spanish Wikipedia names bivalves and small crustaceans. FishBase places it at 3.8 on the food ladder — that is the level of a predator, not of a grazer.
  • On the when, the sources are silent. None of the sources read here names a preferred time of day or season for feeding. All that is documented is the distribution by age: young fish shallow, old fish deep.
  • First female, then male. According to Italian Wikipedia the species is a protogynous hermaphrodite: the fish are female first and become male at about 55 cm. FishBase gives no figures on this — length at maturity is listed there as unknown.
  • On the hook. FishBase lists it as a game fish. Italian Wikipedia writes that it is caught like the common dentex, and that its flesh is just as highly valued.
  • Conservation status: Least Concern on the IUCN Red List (assessed 2009). But FishBase rates its resilience to fishing as very low (population doubling time of more than 14 years, preliminary estimate) and its vulnerability as high to very high (69 out of 100). If only the large fish become males, taking large fish hits precisely the males.

Where the sources contradict each other

  • How big does it get? FishBase: 80 cm standard length, i.e. measured without the tail fin, and 3 kg. Catalan Wikipedia: 80 cm total length. Italian Wikipedia: 75 cm. Spanish Wikipedia: up to 90 cm and up to 11 kg. Between 3 and 11 kg lies more than a measuring error.
  • How far into the Mediterranean does it reach? FishBase and Spanish Wikipedia: only the south-west. Italian Wikipedia: widespread in the Mediterranean, above all in the south, rare in Italian waters. Catalan Wikipedia: rare in the Mediterranean, but individual fish seen as far as Greece and Israel. French Wikipedia: names only the coasts of West Africa.
  • How deep? FishBase: down to 170 m, with no upper limit. Spanish Wikipedia: 2 to 200 m. Italian Wikipedia: 10 to 150 m.
  • How many bands, and on which fish? Spanish Wikipedia: 4 to 5, reddish-brown, with no restriction to any age. Italian Wikipedia: 5 to 7, bright red, in juveniles — adults almost uniform.
  • Important food fish or a sideline? The same FishBase page says it is regarded as an important food fish — and, under uses, minor commercial importance, price category low. Italian Wikipedia puts its flesh on a par with that of the common dentex.
  • What exactly does it eat? FishBase: molluscs including cephalopods, and crustaceans. Spanish Wikipedia: bivalves and small crustaceans — nothing there about squid or cuttlefish.
  • Is it a species of its own at all? FishBase and GBIF list it as a valid species. Italian Wikipedia notes that others regarded it as the juvenile form of a second species and thus as a synonym of *Pagrus caeruleostictus*; its status, it says, was only clarified a few years ago. Conversely, according to Spanish Wikipedia, reports of *P. caeruleostictus* from the Canaries rest on misidentifications of this species.

Three traps in the name

  • “Pagro reale maschio” is not a male. In Italian, *P. auriga* is called pagro reale. Italian Wikipedia also mentions a “pagro reale maschio”, with which the species was long confused — literally a “male” pagro reale, but what is meant is a different fish, from the context *Pagrus caeruleostictus*.
  • “Murudai” under English. GBIF also lists “Murudai” as an English name. Under Japanese it has マルダイ (Marudai) — the supposedly English name is evidently a transliteration of that.
  • Names borrowed from other breams. Dutch goudbrasem is otherwise the gilthead seabream (*Sparus aurata*); French sar royal and Spanish sargo de bandas carmesí use the name of the sargo breams (*Diplodus*); GBIF lists all three for *P. auriga*. And the year 1816 with the name Cuvier in Spanish Wikipedia belongs to the genus *Pagrus* — the species itself was described by Valenciennes in 1843.

Which brings us to the when, where every article in this series ends. With the redbanded seabream the honest answer is: the sources don’t know — nowhere is there a word on when it feeds. Habitat, prey and features are covered above, as far as they are documented. What changes every day are the conditions on your water — StrikeAhead calculates them and tells you when the trip is worth it. And because nobody knows the edges and rules of unfamiliar water 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 shots, no paid ranking and, for you as an angler, no booking fee. The app tells you when, Pathfinder who with.