North America

It is difficult to relate the Mediterranean species to those which are encountered in North America, with its three extensive coastlines and range of climate from the warmth of Florida to the Arctic ice. The lists below will show that to a surprising extent the fish of the Mediterranean are found in North American waters in identical or closely related forms. It is, of course, in the waters of the Gulf States and the Caribbean that these relationships are most obvious, since these waters (and also those of the Gulf Stream, which skirt Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas as they flow northwards) have temperatures close to those of the Mediterranean. The situation is neatly symbolized by Pagrus pagrus pagrus, the sea bream of the Mediterranean whose eggs cross the Atlantic and hatch out in the Caribbean as baby ‘red porgies’.