Sea Bream (U.K.), Red Porgy (U.S.A.)

Family Sparidae

REMARKS This species, which has a maximum length of about 75 cm, is the only member of its family to be found on both sides of the North Atlantic. It is pargo in Portugal and Spain, and pagre in France.

The species, which ranges well up the eastern seaboard of the United States, was for many years treated by American ichthyologists as a separate species, Pagrus sedecim. However, a recent study by Manooch and others has demonstrated its synonymy with Pagrus pagrus; and has also produced the interesting suggestion that the species first crossed the Atlantic in the form of eggs borne by the east-to-west current, and that the continuation of this traffic has sufficed to prevent the American colony from acquiring new characteristics which would warrant treating them as a separate species.