10 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
Series 4, Volume 65, 28 Sept. 2018, No. 1 
Premaxillary teeth in several irregular rows, the outer enlarged with one or more large canines 
at anterior end. A single file of enlarged, spaced teeth on dentary, largest teeth midlength on jaw; 
much smaller teeth interspersed on sides of larger teeth and a cluster of small teeth at anterior end. 
Vomer broadly V-shaped with small teeth. Palatine teeth all small, in a short to elongate patch. 
Scales small, ctenoid, present on sides of head and nape to margin of frontals, but absent on 
interorbital, snout, suborbital region, jaws, gular and branchiostegal membranes, interopercle bone, 
outer margin of preopercle, and lower margin of subopercle. Small scales at bases of dorsal, anal, 
pectoral and caudal fins, and minimally (if at all) on pelvic fins. 
First 4-6 spines of dorsal fin graduated, the 6 th spine usually longest, the spines following 
subequal; the soft rays slightly higher, forming a slight rise (but no distinct notch) in profile of 
dorsal fin. Anal-fin spines much shorter than soft rays, the first spine somewhat more than half 
length of second and third spines, the last three or four soft rays longest. Pectoral fin broad-based, 
its origin slightly behind that of pelvic fins and about on same vertical as origin of dorsal fin, its 
distal tip over anus, slightly behind origin of anal fin. Pelvic fin falling well short of anus. Caudal 
fin shallowly lunate, almost truncate, upper and lower lobes about equal, but upper lobe with a very 
short streamer in small juveniles. 
Color: (Fig. 5) A series of about nine dark vertical bands along the light brown to reddish body, 
interrupted in some specimens by two or three white stripes; underside of head and belly mostly 
white; bands on body reduced to dark lateral blotches in some. Caudal and soft dorsal fins punc¬ 
tated with small bluish dots; in some individuals the basal one-third to one-half of soft dorsal fin 
dark but distally pale with small bluish spots; tips of caudal fin occasionally reddish (Fig. 6). 
Posterior margin of caudal fin occasionally blackish but never with black lobes as in S. atricauda. 
Juveniles may be quite different: a white midlateral stripe bordered by two thick black stripes, the 
upper stripe running from tip of snout through middle of eye to upper margin of operculum onto 
trunk above midlateral line to upper half of caudal peduncle, the lower stripe from base of pectoral 
fin to lower half of caudal peduncle; the dark stripes often partially broken into dark blotches. The 
juvenile color pattern is often very similar to that of S. atricauda (compare with Fig. 3), although 
three juveniles (CAS 234559,44.4-50.7 mm SL) trawled in 53-50 m off Senegal lacked the promi¬ 
nent dark lateral stripes. 
As in many other fish species, S. cabrilla specimens from deep water tend to be more yellow 
(Medioni et al. 2001). In one individual from deeper waters at the Azores (Fig. 7), ground color 
golden-yellow on flanks, yellowish-orange on head, and brownish to tan on dorsum; four or five 
metallic-blue longitudinal lines or stripes on body and three diagonal stripes on head, the lowest 
stripe on head originating on snout and running to preopercle angle onto subopercle; the upper two 
stripes originating below orbit and terminating at margin of opercle. A fourth diagonal stripe pres¬ 
ent in some, originating on posterior portion of maxilla and extending a short distance onto preop¬ 
ercle. Fins yellowish; the soft dorsal with dark basal half, the dark bands on body extending onto 
dorsal-fin rays. 
Size. 40 cm TL. 
Habitat and distribution. — Over hard bottoms from the shore to 450 m; from the British 
Isles to Angola, including the Azores, Madeira, the Canary Islands, Sao Tome Island (based on 
photo by the second author) and Principe Island (first record based on CAS 234287), apparently 
here and only in deep water at the Cape Verde Islands (Freitas et al., in prep.); also throughout the 
Mediterranean and into the Black Sea. Its presence in the Red Sea is attributed to invasion from the 
Mediterranean Sea after the Suez Canal was opened in 1869 (Norman 1927; Tortonese 1954; 
Meisler 1988:156). Records of the species from South Africa are apparently of the closely similar 
S. knysnaensis Gilchrist, 1904 (Heemstra and Anderson, 2016). 
