Canary damselfish
Fish · Last reviewed 2026-08-25
The dark blue damselfish that hangs over every piece of Canarian rock in numbers — the second most abundant fish in the archipelago's light shore fishing.
Catching Canary damselfish
Everything here on fishing for it. Each entry opens the page behind it.
- Ground
- When
- Feb–Mar and May — months recorded at the places that document it, not a season for the whole range.
- Where
- 4 places FishingHQ documents — strongest claim anywhere: repeatedly reported · From the shore
The fula negra is the fish an angler sees before they catch anything in the Canaries: a hand-sized, deep-bodied, almost black-blue damselfish holding in loose crowds over rock, in every harbour and off every ledge, from the surface down to about 25 m.
Colour is where the name comes from and where the confusion starts. Adults are a very dark blue-black, often with electric blue edging to the fins and a paler tail; young fish are considerably brighter and more obviously blue. It is a Macaronesian and West African fish — Madeira, the Azores, the Salvage Islands, the Canaries, Cape Verde and Senegal — and it appears in older literature as *Abudefduf luridus* before the genus *Similiparma* was applied to it.
It was among the fish a Lanzarote trip report recorded as `damselfish` and could not identify further, which mattered, because two pomacentrids share that ground. A species-hunting angler counted them separately: twenty-five of this one, and thirteen of the paler Azores chromis, across a single week.
For fishing it belongs squarely to light rock fishing. It takes small soft plastics and scraps of natural bait fished a foot or two down beside structure, and it takes them freely enough to be caught in numbers by anybody deliberately fishing small. It has no value as food or as a fight, and it is a fish that a species hunter, a beginner and a child will all catch — which is a real thing to know about a coast, and not a trivial one.
Where Canary damselfish 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.
Lanzarote
2 documented places
The cliff coast between Puerto del Carmen and Puerto Calero
Rock mark
Recorded here
From the shore
Reported May
Puerto del Carmen harbour, Lanzarote
Harbour wall
Repeatedly reported
From the shore
Reported May
The Azores
1 documented place
Ponta Delgada harbour, São Miguel
Harbour wall
Recorded here
From the shore
Reported Mar
What these strengths mean
- Recorded here
- At least one credible public account of this species being caught here. That is all it means.
- Repeatedly reported
- Several independent public accounts. Enough to say it happens more than once; not enough to call it a fishery.
When to fish for canary damselfish
Where the places here state a season for canary damselfish, it clusters in Feb–Mar, May. This is a count of how many documented places name each month — evidence about when people fish for it, not a prediction of what any particular day will produce.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January: no place here names this month — no place names it. | February: 1 place names this month — some places. | March: 1 place names this month — some places. | April: no place here names this month — no place names it. | May: 2 places name this month — most places. | June: no place here names this month — no place names it. | July: no place here names this month — no place names it. | August: no place here names this month — no place names it. | September: no place here names this month — no place names it. | October: no place here names this month — no place names it. | November: no place here names this month — no place names it. | December: no place here names this month — no place names it. |
4 of the 4 places that record canary damselfish as quarry state which months. The dated records span 3 separate areas.
Identification
No photograph of Canary damselfish 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
- Similiparma lurida
- Family
- Pomacentridae
- Water
- Saltwater
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Regions
- Western Europe, West Africa
- Deep, oval, laterally compressed body — a damselfish outline, deeper than it is long behind the head.
- Adults very dark blue to nearly black, frequently with bright blue edging to the fins; juveniles distinctly bluer and brighter.
- A single dorsal fin running most of the length of the back, with the spiny and soft portions continuous.
- Small: FishBase records a maximum of 15 cm.
- Separated from the Azores chromis, which shares its rock, by being much darker and deeper-bodied — the chromis is pale brown with a forked tail and a dark-edged fin margin.
Size
- Typical
- 8–12 cm
- Large
- 13 cm and over
Exceptional: FishBase records a maximum of 15 cm
Lifecycle and reproduction
Reef-associated, non-migratory, over a depth range of 0 to 25 m — which is to say the whole of it is within a shore angler's reach. High resilience, and abundant throughout its range.
Damselfishes generally lay demersal eggs on a cleared patch of rock which the male guards, and the reproductive biology of this species is not separately documented on the FishBase record. That is stated rather than filled in from the family.
Feeding and senses
Picks small invertebrates and algae from rock and from the water column immediately above it, feeding in loose aggregations rather than singly. It investigates anything small that enters its water, which is what makes it catchable at all.
A daylight visual feeder in clear shallow water, holding station against surge and returning to the same piece of rock. It tolerates an angler standing over it, which is unusual and is why it can be fished for by sight.
Through the year
Resident year-round and non-migratory. It is one of the fish that makes the archipelago's shore fishing a twelve-month proposition rather than a summer one.
Distribution
Eastern Atlantic: including Madeira, Azores, Ilheus Selvagens, Canary Islands, Cape Verde, and Senegal
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
One of the two commonest fish in Canary light rock fishing, taken in numbers on drop-shotted soft plastics and small natural baits from any harbour wall or rock ledge in the islands. It is not eaten and it is not a sporting fish; its significance is that it is always there, always willing, and it is what a beginner or a child actually catches on a Canarian holiday.
Handling and returning
Small, spiny-dorsaled and delicate. Use crushed barbs and small hooks, handle with wet hands or not at all, and unhook in the water where it can be done. A damselfish out of water on hot rock for a photograph is a damselfish that does not go back.
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
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Family, maximum size, depth range, environment, distribution and the IUCN assessment for Similiparma lurida.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species — International Union for Conservation of Nature (Conservation authority)Relied on for: The Least Concern assessment for Similiparma lurida, assessed 15 March 2011.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- REDPROMAR — the Canary Government's marine observation and species network — Gobierno de Canarias, Consejería de Transición Ecológica — REDPROMAR, with GRAFCAN (Conservation authority)Relied on for: That this species is recorded in Canary waters by the regional government's marine observation network, and the Canarian vernacular name it files it under.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- Species hunting adventures on Lanzarote — a four-part shore diary with a full tally — Something Fishy Going On (angling blog), parts also posted to World Sea Fishing, 2014 (Practitioner report)Relied on for: That this species is taken from named public shore marks on Lanzarote, how many were caught across one week in May, and the light-tackle methods and baits that took them.States this directlyPassage read and verified
Why the 3 connections on this page are here, and the sources
Similar and related fish
Backed by research — 1 connection
Supported by peer-reviewed research or fisheries science. The sources are listed and can be checked.
Azores chromis
Both are Macaronesian pomacentrids on the same rock. Similiparma lurida, the fula negra, is dark blue-black, deep-bodied and recorded from 0 to 25 m; Chromis limbata, the fula blanca, is pale, slimmer, forked-tailed and recorded from 5 to 45 m. A trip report naming only `damselfish` is unresolvable between them, which is exactly what happened to one.
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: The morphology, size, depth range and distribution that separate these two species from one another.States this directlyPassage read and verified
How it is caught
Reported, not established — 1 connection
Reported, but without independent support. Recorded because it is in circulation, not because it has been shown to hold.
Light rock fishing
Recorded as the second most numerous species of the trip, taken on small soft plastics and scraps fished a foot or two down beside structure on very light tackle.
- Species hunting adventures on Lanzarote — a four-part shore diary with a full tally — Something Fishy Going On (angling blog), parts also posted to World Sea Fishing, 2014 (Practitioner report)Relied on for: The light-tackle methods, rigs, lures, baits and hook sizes a species-hunting angler used on Lanzarote, and the species each took.States this directlyPassage read and verified
Where it lives
Backed by research — 1 connection
Supported by peer-reviewed research or fisheries science. The sources are listed and can be checked.
Rocky shores and reefs
Recorded as reef-associated and non-migratory over a depth range of 0 to 25 m across Macaronesia and West Africa.
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Environment, depth range, habitat association and distribution for Similiparma lurida.States this directlyPassage read and verified
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy.