Picarel

A small, slim, grey-brown fish with a silvery belly and one clear identification mark: a squarish dark spot on the side of the body, just above and behind the pectoral fin. The mouth is small but shoots forward on a hinge when it feeds, which gives it a slightly startled look in photographs. Most are around 14 cm and the largest reach about 24 cm.

Outside the breeding season it shoals, often in company with bogue and small bream, drifting over Posidonia and over sand and mud in open water. In late winter and spring the males change completely: they dig shallow nest hollows in sand or coarse detritus, turn a striking blue-spotted colour and defend a patch while females pass overhead. Once spawning finishes, the colour drains away and the males rejoin the shoals.

Around the Maltese islands it is most reliably found over deeper seagrass and the sand and detritic bottom beyond it, generally from ten metres down to well past a diver's limit. It is a common enough catch to appear regularly in the local market and in fish soup.