Sheepshead (Archosargus probatocephalus) is a saltwater, brackish species recorded in the United States. It is mainly found over reef, at depths of ≥ 15 m.
Scientific name: Archosargus probatocephalus · Water: Saltwater, Brackish
Size: up to 91 cm
The sheepshead is a sparid that inhabits bays and estuaries, freely entering brackish water and sometimes fresh water, and it is commonly found around pilings. It is caught by anglers from jetties or rocky shores, and it feeds mainly on mollusks and crustaceans. It is an excellent food fish, marketed fresh and frozen. It is recorded from 15 m downwards, with no maximum depth recorded for it. Maximum length is about 91 cm total length, commonly about 35 cm. It is a commercial species, a gamefish and a public aquarium fish, with a low price category. Fishing vulnerability is moderate at 36 of 100 and resilience medium, and climate vulnerability is high to very high at 69 of 100. IUCN lists it as least concern.
The body is oval, deep and laterally compressed with a small blunt head whose dorsal and ventral profiles are both convex. The eyes are moderate in size, the mouth is small and horizontal, and the preorbital bone overlaps the rear of the maxilla. The teeth at the front of the jaw are broad and flattened, while the sides of the upper jaw carry three rows of molar-like teeth and the lower jaw two — the crushing surfaces behind a diet of molluscs and crustaceans. The margin of the preoperculum is smooth, with neither serrations nor spines. The dorsal fin is long rather than high and is supported by 12 spines, the front one pointing forward and sometimes embedded, together with 11 soft rays; the anal fin has three spines, the second of them very robust, and 9 or 10 soft rays. The pectoral fin is long — clearly longer than the pelvic fins — and reaches back to the level of the middle anal spine, and the caudal fin is forked. Adults are silvery to greenish-yellow with olive on the upper body, and carry five or six dark vertical bars along the flanks that fade with age; the caudal and pectoral fins are greenish while the dorsal, anal and pelvic fins are dark. Its range in the Western Atlantic runs from Nova Scotia to Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil and takes in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. It favours coastal water around rock pilings, jetties, mangrove roots, piers and tidal creeks, is euryhaline with a preference for brackish water, and seeks out warmer spots around freshwater springs and discharges.
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