Canary black limpet
Fish · Last reviewed 2026-08-25
A Macaronesian limpet with a legal minimum size and a five-month closed season on every Canary island — and the animal a reader looking up `limpet` here used to be shown a British species for.
Safety: contamination and toxins in the catch — can cause serious injury or death. One more point applies here.
Contamination and toxins in the catch — Can cause serious injury or death
Grazing intertidal molluscs concentrate marine biotoxins and microbiological contamination out of the water they sit in. Neither cooking nor the animal's appearance, smell or taste removes a biotoxin, and harvesting areas are opened and closed on monitoring results a gatherer cannot see.
What reduces it: Check the current status of the specific area with the authority that monitors it before gathering anything to eat. This is not a judgement a person can make on the shore, and it is not one any general reference can make for them.
Catching Canary black limpet
Everything here on fishing for it. Each entry opens the page behind it.
- Where
- 6 places FishingHQ documents — strongest claim anywhere: established quarry · From the shore
*Patella candei* A. d'Orbigny, 1840 is one of the Macaronesian limpets, and in the Canaries it is the `lapa negra`. It is not the common limpet of British shores, which does not occur there, and the difference matters more than a name usually does — because this animal is regulated and that one is not.
The Canary fisheries directorate sets a minimum size for it and closes limpet and topshell gathering across EVERY island for roughly five months over the winter, with a further summer closure on Fuerteventura alone. No date and no figure is carried here and none should be read off this page: closures move, and the authority is the only place a current one exists. What is recorded is the SHAPE — that an authority closes this animal for most of the year on one island and for nearly half of it on the rest.
THAT IS THE FACT WORTH CARRYING. A shore animal that a government protects for most of the year on an archipelago where gathering it is a tradition is an animal under real pressure, and a reader who knows only that limpets are common has been told the opposite of what is true here.
Like the other patellid limpets it grazes microalgae and biofilm off rock on a rising or wet tide and returns to a home scar, clamping immovably when touched. Macaronesian limpets are strongly zoned on the shore, and gathering concentrates on the accessible band, which is why a platform that is easy to walk out onto tends to be the one that is cleared.
It is gathered for the table across the archipelago and appears in a peer-reviewed Madeiran shore-angling survey among the invertebrates anglers collect alongside their fishing.
How it is caught
Where Canary black limpet is documented
Places where public sources describe this species as fished, with how it is fished and how strongly the evidence supports it. This is not a range map and it is not a recommendation — it is what has been written down about a fishery rather than a record of any individual catch, and being listed is never permission to fish.
Canary Islands
6 documented places
Gran Canaria
Island
Established quarry
From the shore
Fuerteventura
Island
Established quarry
From the shore
La Palma
Island
Established quarry
From the shore
La Gomera
Island
Established quarry
From the shore
El Hierro
Island
Established quarry
From the shore
La Graciosa
Island
Established quarry
From the shore
What these strengths mean
- Established quarry
- Fishing sources describe this as a normal local target here, not merely as caught.
Identification
No photograph of Canary black limpet has passed identity review yet, so none is shown. FishingHQ publishes a species photograph only once somebody has confirmed the animal in it against the species record’s own diagnostic features.
- Scientific name
- Patella candei
- Family
- Patellidae
- Water
- Saltwater
- Conservation status
- Not assessed
- Regions
- Western Europe, West Africa
- A conical limpet shell without a spiral, ridged from apex to margin, on Macaronesian rock.
- Darker than the lapa blanca it shares the shore with, which is the basis of the local names rather than a formal character.
- The Canary directorate sets a minimum shell size for it; the figure is the authority's to state.
- Separating the Macaronesian limpets reliably needs the interior of the shell and the colour of the foot, which means lifting the animal — and lifting it is the act that kills it if it is then not taken.
- NOT the common limpet, Patella vulgata, which is a northern European animal and does not occur in the Canaries or Madeira.
Size
- Typical
- 3–5 cm shell length
- Large
- Over 6 cm
Exceptional: The Canary fisheries directorate's published minimum sits inside the ordinary adult range, which is what a documented minimum size on a slow-growing grazer usually means.
Lifecycle and reproduction
A short planktonic larval stage settles onto rock, after which the animal is effectively sedentary for life. Growth is slow and individuals are long-lived. As in the patellid limpets generally, animals begin life as males and a proportion change to female with size, so the largest animals on a shore are disproportionately the breeding females — which is why removing the biggest is not taking a random sample.
Gametes are released into the water, concentrated in the colder months across the genus. The Canary closed season running from December to April sits squarely across that period, which is the shape a spawning closure takes.
Feeding and senses
Grazes microalgae, biofilm and algal sporelings off rock with a radula, leaving the home scar on a wet or rising tide and returning to it. Limpet grazing is one of the main controls on algal cover on the shores it occupies.
Simple light-and-shadow eyes at the tentacle bases, chemoreception used to navigate back to the home scar, and an immediate and powerful clamp response to touch — which is the whole of why the animal is difficult to remove and why removal attempts so often damage it.
Through the year
Sedentary and present year-round; feeding follows the wetting of the rock rather than the calendar. What changes seasonally is not the animal but the legal position: the Canary directorate closes limpet gathering for roughly five winter months on every island, and for a further summer period on Fuerteventura alone. The dates are the authority's to state and to change.
Distribution
Macaronesian: recorded from the Canary Islands, Madeira and the Selvagens, on intertidal rock. The Canary fisheries directorate regulates it across all eight of its islands, and a Madeiran shore-angling survey records limpets of this genus among the invertebrates its anglers gather.
This is a biological range — where the species occurs, not a prediction that you will catch one. To browse the fishing geography FishingHQ holds, start at fishing places.
Why anglers care
Gathered for the table across Macaronesia and taken by shore anglers alongside their fishing — the Madeiran creel survey records limpets at 2.91% of the archipelago's estimated recreational shore catch, which puts them ahead of most of the fish in the same table. In the Canaries the animal carries a legal minimum size and a five-month closure on every island.
Handling and returning
The animal is destroyed by a failed attempt to take it: a limpet prised at and left behind is usually a limpet that dies. Anybody lifting one to identify it should be prepared to take it or to leave it alone in the first place. The shell edge is sharp enough to cut a hand pulling against a clamped animal. Before eating anything gathered here, ask the local food safety or environmental health authority about the specific area — a different body from the fisheries directorate that sets the size and the season.
Safety
Contamination and toxins in the catch is set out at the top of this page, where it cannot be missed.
Slips, trips and falls — Can cause injury needing treatment
Limpet gathering happens on wet, weeded, sloping intertidal rock at low water, with attention on the rock immediately underfoot rather than on the sea. Macaronesian platforms are lava, which is abrasive when dry and slick where algae grows.
What reduces it: Boots with real grip, a companion who is watching the water rather than the rock, and a stated turn-round time. Never gather with your back to an Atlantic swell.
Check the rules before you fish
Fishing laws, bylaws, access rules, seasons, bait restrictions and permitted methods vary by location and can change. Check the current rules from the relevant authority and the water you intend to fish before fishing.
Check with:
- Current national or regional law for where you are fishing
- Current local bylaws
- The relevant fisheries authority
- The landowner, club or fishery whose water it is
- Any restrictions specific to the species or the method you intend to use
Where to go next
Similar and related fish
Where it lives
More fish
Not related to this page — just the rest of the section. There is little else joined to this subject yet, and a short page should still lead somewhere.
Sources and evidence
- WoRMS — the World Register of Marine Species — WoRMS Editorial Board, hosted by the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) (Scientific institute)Relied on for: The accepted name, naming authority, taxonomic status and family for Patella candei.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- Tallas mínimas de captura — Canarias: minimum landing sizes and closed seasons — Gobierno de Canarias, Consejería de Agricultura, Ganadería y Pesca — Dirección General de Pesca, with the Grupo de Acción Costera de Tenerife and the Cabildo de Tenerife (Government fisheries body)Relied on for: That this animal is regulated recreational shore-gathering quarry in the Canary Islands, the Canarian common name the directorate gives it, and the existence and shape of the closed seasons it states.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- Importance of recreational shore angling in the archipelago of Madeira (northeast Atlantic) — Scientia Marina (CSIC), vol. 84 no. 4, 2020 (Scientific literature)Relied on for: That this animal is recorded in the recreational shore-angling catch of the Madeira archipelago, at 2.91% for limpets of the estimated total by the study's own catch-composition table.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- General angling website restatements of established technique — Various (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: The widely restated practitioner account of how this animal is gathered — the ground, the state of tide, and the tools used.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
Why the 4 connections on this page are here, and the sources
Similar and related fish
Backed by research — 2 connections
Supported by peer-reviewed research or fisheries science. The sources are listed and can be checked.
Common limpet
Patella candei A. d'Orbigny, 1840 is a Macaronesian species. Patella vulgata is a northern European one and does not occur in the Canaries or Madeira. They are not distinguished in the field so much as by ocean, and the practical consequence is regulatory rather than biological: the Macaronesian animal carries a legal minimum size and a closed season, and the northern one does not.
- WoRMS — the World Register of Marine Species — WoRMS Editorial Board, hosted by the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) (Scientific institute)Relied on for: The accepted names, naming authorities, taxonomic status, synonymy and families that separate these animals from one another.States this directlyPassage read and verified
Macaronesian white limpet
Patella aspera Röding, 1798 and Patella candei A. d'Orbigny, 1840 are both accepted Macaronesian species, gathered together under the names lapa blanca and lapa negra. The white limpet is paler, more strongly ribbed and lower on the shore; the black limpet is darker and higher. Reliable separation needs the shell interior and the foot, which means lifting the animal — an act that kills it if it is then left.
- WoRMS — the World Register of Marine Species — WoRMS Editorial Board, hosted by the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) (Scientific institute)Relied on for: The accepted names, naming authorities, taxonomic status, synonymy and families that separate these animals from one another.States this directlyPassage read and verified
How it is caught
What experienced anglers do — 1 connection
Widely and independently recommended by experienced anglers and specialist sources. This is real angling knowledge, not proof: controlled evidence for it is limited, and FishingHQ records it as convention rather than as a demonstrated effect.
Gathering winkles, whelks and limpets
The Madeiran creel survey records that some shore anglers complete their catches by collecting intertidal invertebrates, naming the limpets among them, and puts limpets at 2.91% of the archipelago's estimated recreational shore catch. The practitioner account is consistent that a limpet prised at and left behind usually dies, so the decision to take it is made before it is touched rather than after.
- Importance of recreational shore angling in the archipelago of Madeira (northeast Atlantic) — Scientia Marina (CSIC), vol. 84 no. 4, 2020 (Scientific literature)Relied on for: That Madeiran shore anglers collect intertidal invertebrates alongside their fishing, which animals they collect, and their use of previously caught bait.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- General angling website restatements of established technique — Various (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: The widely restated practitioner account of how this animal is gathered and used.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
Where it lives
Official guidance — 1 connection
Stated by a fisheries authority, scientific institute or recognised angling body. Authoritative, but summarising rather than demonstrating.
Mudflats and intertidal sandflats
A sedentary intertidal grazer on Macaronesian rock, regulated as shore-gathering quarry by the Canary fisheries directorate across all of its islands. Macaronesian limpets are strongly zoned, and this one occupies the accessible band, which is why gathering pressure falls on it rather than being spread over the shore.
- Tallas mínimas de captura — Canarias: minimum landing sizes and closed seasons — Gobierno de Canarias, Consejería de Agricultura, Ganadería y Pesca — Dirección General de Pesca, with the Grupo de Acción Costera de Tenerife and the Cabildo de Tenerife (Government fisheries body)Relied on for: That this animal is regulated recreational shore-gathering quarry across the Canary Islands, and the Canarian name the directorate gives it.States this directlyPassage read and verified
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy.