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Go Paperless with Digital. Get smart. Adults are found nearshore coastal waters, bays, sounds, and estuaries and enter brackish reaches of rivers. Typically associated with reefs, live bottom, wrecks, piers, pilings, rocks, and jetties. Juveniles inhabit grass beds, muddy bottoms, and oyster reefs within estuaries. Older juveniles tolerate higher salinity water near jetties, piers, and other hard structures in coastal waters. The average size sheepshead is 14 inches, 3 pounds.
Sheepshead grow to 30 inches, but more commonly reaches 20 inches. They live to approximately 25 years old. Adults migrate to offshore waters to spawn, later returning to nearshore waters and estuaries. Spawning frequency ranges from once a day to once every 20 days. Little is known regarding spawning behavior. Depending upon their condition, females may produce from 1, to , eggs per spawning event. One study determined that those fishes found closer to shore averaged 11, eggs per spawning event while those offshore averaged 87, eggs per batch.
The buoyant eggs are approximately 0. The larvae rely on the attached yolk sac at lengths of 2. When the larvae reach 4mm in length, the caudal and anal fins are well developed. Pigmentation of the larval sheepshead is brownish with a median ventral line. Black spots are located behind the isthmus, base of the pectoral fin, and anterior to the anal fin.
Two dark specks are also located at the base of the anal fin. Juvenile sheepshead mm have a forked caudal fin, a lateral line and exhibit adult patterning. They are most abundant in seagrass flats and above mud bottoms, feeding on copepods and algae.
At lengths of 50mm, the juveniles leave the grass flats and congregate with adults around jetties, piers, and pilings. Parasites The sheepshead is parasitized by a variety of organisms including ciliates, nematodes, trematodes, and isopods, none of which are known to pose a significant threat to populations of this fish.
The sheepshead is a member of the porgy and seabream family Sparidae , which is comprised of approximately species distributed worldwide. The sheepshead was originally described by J. Walbaum in as Sparus probatocephalus. Recognizing the uniqueness of the sheepshead in comparison to other porgies, long time Smithsonian scientist Theodore Nicholas Gill erected the monotypic genus Archosargus in Today there are two valid species of Archosargus , the aforementioned A.
The fish's front teeth are even coated with enamel, like the human incisors they resemble. Anglers can find sheepshead fish swimming near the Atlantic coast from Massachusetts to Brazil. Despite being caught for sport, they are edible. Many Facebook users, including Nathan Martin, the angler who caught the fish, commented on how tasty these fish are, the Post reports.
While the toothy sheepshead jaw may spook those unfamiliar with the fish, they pose no threat to humans at all.
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