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| Courtesy of California Dept. of Fish and Game |
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Common name: Sheephead (also commonly known as convict fish, sheepshead,
sheepshead seabream
Scientific name: Archosargus probatocephalus
Description: Sheephead feature a deep body with an oval shape. It has a
horizontal mouth and a small slit snout.
Short spines appear on both the fish’s dorsal and anal fins. The fish’s second spint on the anal fin is slightly enlarged. The pectoral fins protrude past the anal opening of the fish. Also, the fish features a slightly forked caudal fin.
Sheephead have a set of incisors, molars and grinders. The incisors are located at the very front of the jaw. The molars are set in three rows at the upper jaw with tow more rows in the lower jaw. Unlike most predators, the sheephead does not have a set of teeth on the roof of its mouth.
The sheephead’s body is a greenish silver color. The five vertical bars the stretch the fish’s sides are usually a dark olive to black color. The pectoral and caudal fins are usually a green color, with the anal, dorsal and ventral fins tend to be black.
The sheephead can grow as large as 91cm and weigh as much as 16 kg.
Habitat: Sheephead can be found in the western waters of the Atlantic Ocean,
throughout Canada and the Gulf of Mexico. Small populations of sheephead can also be found in the waters of the Caribbean, Central and South America.
Sheephead prefer areas near rock pilings, jetties, mangrove roots, oyster bars, seawalls, tidal creeks, rocky reefs, kelp beds and surfgrass beds. The fish prefer warmer water by spring outlets or river discharges. They like areas of high and low relief that wear barnacles and harbor crabs.
The sheephead cannot tolerate areas of water with low levels of dissolved oxygen.
Reproduction: Sheephead spawn in the spring and early summer
seasons. Adult sheephead will move away from the shore in order to spawn.
Females can produce anywhere from 1,100 to 250,000 eggs per spawning session. Once the eggs are released and fertilized, they will roughly be 0.8mm in diameter. The eggs will hatch around 28 hours after they have been fertilized.
Once they reach the length of approximately 50mm, the young sheephead move towards adult sheephead near jetties, piers or rock pilings.
Sheep head reach the age of sexual maturity around 3 to 6 years.
All sheephead are born females with some developing into secondary males, making them protogynous hermaphrodites. Some sheephead can remain female for as long as 15years before turning into a male. The timing of the sex transformation depends on the population sex ratio and the size of the males that already exist.
Eating habit: Sheephead are omnivorous, feeding mostly on small vertebrates
like blue crab, oysters, clams, crustaceans, sea urchin, mollusks and lobster. Sometimes they will feed on plant material if available as well. Young sheephead feed on zooplankton, chironomid larvae and polychaetes.
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