''Sebastes capensis'', the false jacopever or Cape redfish, is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

of marine

ray-finned fish Actinopterygii (; ), members of which are known as ray-finned fishes, is a class of bony fish. They comprise over 50% of living vertebrate species. The ray-finned fishes are so called because their fins are webs of skin supported by bony or hor ...

belonging to the subfamily

Sebastinae Sebastinae is a subfamily of marine fish belonging to the family Scorpaenidae in the order Scorpaeniformes. Their common names include rockfishes, rock perches, ocean perches, sea perches, thornyheads, scorpionfishes, sea ruffes and rockcods. D ...

, the rockfishes, part of the

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

Scorpaenidae The Scorpaenidae (also known as scorpionfish) are a family of mostly marine fish that includes many of the world's most venomous species. As their name suggests, scorpionfish have a type of "sting" in the form of sharp spines coated with venom ...

. It is found in the South Atlantic Ocean and may also occur off southern and western South America.

Taxonomy and etymology

''Sebastes capensis'' was originally described by the German naturalist

Johann Friedrich Gmelin , fields = , workplaces = University of GöttingenUniversity of Tübingen , alma_mater = University of Tübingen , doctoral_advisor = Philipp Friedrich GmelinFerdinand Christoph Oetinger , academic_advisors = , doctora ...

in 1789 as ''Scorpaena capensis'' with the type locality given as the

Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( af, Kaap die Goeie Hoop ) ;''Kaap'' in isolation: pt, Cabo da Boa Esperança is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is t ...

. Some authorities place this species in the

subgenus In biology, a subgenus (plural: subgenera) is a taxonomic rank directly below genus. In the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, a subgeneric name can be used independently or included in a species name, in parentheses, placed between t ...

''Sebastomus''. It has recently been demonstrated that the specimens from Peru and Chile are actually attributable to the closely related '' S. oculatus'' and these two similar species are

sympatric In biology, two related species or populations are considered sympatric when they exist in the same geographic area and thus frequently encounter one another. An initially interbreeding population that splits into two or more distinct species sh ...

in the southwestern Atlantic off Argentina. The

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

''capensis'' refers to the type locality, the Cape of Good Hope. The common name false jacopever derives from a name given to some groupers, originally in the Dutch East Indies and then in the Caribbean. It is a corruption of the name Jacob Evertsz, a Dutch sailor who was said to be a small man with yellowish skin, a pockmarked face and bulging eyes.

Description

The Cape redfish is a

demersal The demersal zone is the part of the sea or ocean (or deep lake) consisting of the part of the water column near to (and significantly affected by) the seabed and the benthos. The demersal zone is just above the benthic zone and forms a layer of ...

fish that grows to a maximum length of about though a more normal size is about . The dorsal fin has about thirteen spines and thirteen soft rays and the anal fin has three spines and six soft rays. The general colour of this fish is reddish or brown, and there are five or six pale spots on its back.

Distribution and habitat

The Cape redfish is found in subtropical waters in the southeastern Atlantic Ocean on the coasts of

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

Tristan da Cunha Tristan da Cunha (), colloquially Tristan, is a remote group of volcanic islands in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is the most remote inhabited archipelago in the world, lying approximately from Cape Town in South Africa, from Saint Helena ...

and

Gough Island upright=1.3, Map of Gough island Gough Island ( ), also known historically as Gonçalo Álvares, is a rugged volcanic island in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is a dependency of Tristan da Cunha and part of the British overseas territory of Sain ...

. Another population may be present in the southeastern Pacific Ocean off the coast of Chile. The depth range for this species is .

Biology

''Sebastes capensis'' feeds on small

benthic The benthic zone is the ecological region at the lowest level of a body of water such as an ocean, lake, or stream, including the sediment surface and some sub-surface layers. The name comes from ancient Greek, βένθος (bénthos), meaning "t ...

invertebrates. It is a viviparous species, retaining the eggs internally until they hatch. In the fiords of southern Chile, the young larvae occupy the channels where

copepod Copepods (; meaning "oar-feet") are a group of small crustaceans found in nearly every freshwater and saltwater habitat (ecology), habitat. Some species are planktonic (inhabiting sea waters), some are benthos, benthic (living on the ocean floor) ...

eggs are plentiful while larger larvae move onto shelf areas where the salinity is higher and larger copepod prey is more abundant. It mainly feeds on

mysids Mysida is an order of small, shrimp-like crustaceans in the malacostracan superorder Peracarida. Their common name opossum shrimps stems from the presence of a brood pouch or "marsupium" in females. The fact that the larvae are reared in this ...

.Barrientos, Gonzalez and Moreno (2006)
''Geographical differences in the feeding patterns of red rockfish (''Sebastes capensis'') along South American coasts.''
Fishery Bulletin 104(4): 489–497

Fisheries

''Sebastes capensis'' is an economically important species to artisanal fishermen as well as being part of the

bycatch Bycatch (or by-catch), in the fishing industry, is a fish or other marine species that is caught unintentionally while fishing for specific species or sizes of wildlife. Bycatch is either the wrong species, the wrong sex, or is undersized or juve ...

in lobster potting in Tristan da Cunha and in fishing surveys off South Africa.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2917885 capensis Fish of the Atlantic Ocean Fish described in 1789 Taxa named by Johann Friedrich Gmelin