The common pandora (''Pagellus erythrinus'') is a

fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of ...

of the sea bream family, Sparidae. It is a popular food fish in Mediterranean countries, with delicate white flesh. It has a slim, oval fusiform body, with a smallish mouth and scales covering its face. The eyes are smaller than those of '' Pagellus bogaraveo'' and '' Pagellus acarne''. It is silver in colour with a pink tinge, particularly on its back. A typical specimen measures 10–30 cm, but it can reach as much as 50 cm in length. The common pandora is a hermaphrodite, spending the first two years of its life as a female, and the third year as a male. It is omnivorous, but mainly feeds on smaller fish and benthic

invertebrate Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

s. As most fishes, the common pandora harbours a variety of

parasites Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. The entomologist E. O. Wilson ha ...

; for example, the nematode '' Philometra filiformis'' is a parasite of the ovary of this fish.

Distribution

The fish is found along the eastern shores of the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

, from

Scandinavia Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Swe ...

to Cape Verde, as well as the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western Europe, Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa ...

and the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea, epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the ...

. In terms of genetic diversity, there appears to be a high level of connectivity from the Atlantic through the Mediterranean.

References

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External links

* * Pagellus Fish of the East Atlantic Fish of the North Sea Fish of the Mediterranean Sea Marine fish of Europe Marine fauna of North Africa Fish described in 1758 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus {{Perciformes-stub