Madeiran sardinella
Fish · Last reviewed 2026-08-25
A West African sardinella that carries Madeira in its name, appears once in a Madeiran catch table, and is not listed from Madeira by FishBase — written here, and deliberately attached to nothing.
Safety: fish welfare — minor injury.
Catching Madeiran sardinella
Everything here on fishing for it. Each entry opens the page behind it.
- Ground
*Sardinella maderensis* is a small West African clupeid: pelagic-neritic and oceanodromous from the surface to 80 m, reaching 30 cm, and assessed as VULNERABLE by the IUCN in 2014 on the basis of decline under heavy commercial pressure.
IT IS DESCRIBED HERE FOR AN UNUSUAL REASON AND THE REASON IS THE POINT.
The Madeiran shore-angling creel survey records it in the archipelago's catch at 0.01% of the estimated total — which, in a 520-tonne fishery sampled from 653 angler interviews, is approximately one fish. FishBase gives its distribution as the southern and eastern Mediterranean and the eastern Atlantic from Gibraltar south to Angola, with one specimen from Walvis Bay. It does not list Madeira.
So there is a disagreement, and it is a small one in a table that is otherwise strikingly consistent. A creel survey is a survey of anglers, not of taxonomy: fish are identified at the point of capture, by interview, and a single small clupeid among 520 tonnes of seabream is exactly where an identification is least secure. `Madeiran sardinella` is also a name that invites the error, which is worth saying out loud.
It is described here because it is a real and heavily fished animal that a reader may meet in West African waters or in a Mediterranean market, and because the honest thing to do with an unresolved record is to show it rather than to drop it.
IT IS CLAIMED FOR NO MADEIRAN MARK. One fish against a global database's range is not a range extension, and the disagreement stands unresolved rather than settled by preferring whichever source is more convenient.
Where it is genuinely abundant — the West African shelf — it is a shoaling surface and mid-water fish taken on small metal, feathers and fine baits, and it is caught overwhelmingly for the table and for bait rather than for sport.
How it is caught
Identification
No photograph of Madeiran sardinella 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
- Sardinella maderensis
- Family
- Dorosomatidae
- Water
- Saltwater, Brackish
- Conservation status
- Vulnerable
- Regions
- West Africa, North Africa, Mediterranean
- A small, slim, silvery clupeid with a distinctly golden or brassy tone along the flank in fresh fish.
- A dark spot at the upper edge of the gill opening.
- The last two anal fin rays enlarged, as in the sardinellas generally.
- Told from the European pilchard by body proportions and by the absence of the pilchard's rows of dark spots along the flank.
- FishBase records a maximum of 30 cm and 0.927 kg.
Size
- Typical
- 15–22 cm
- Large
- 26 cm and over
Exceptional: FishBase records a maximum of 30 cm
Lifecycle and reproduction
Pelagic-neritic and oceanodromous from the surface to 80 m over the continental shelf, in marine and brackish water. FishBase records medium resilience. It tolerates low salinity and enters lagoons and estuaries across its West African range.
A pelagic broadcast spawner over the shelf, spawning through much of the year with peaks tied to upwelling and to the seasonal productivity of the West African coast.
Feeding and senses
Filter-feeds on plankton in shoals in the upper water, switching between filtering and particulate feeding with prey size. It takes small metal, feathers and fine baits where it is targeted at all.
Shoaling daylight plankton feeding in the upper water column, coordinated by sight and by lateral line within the shoal.
Through the year
Its movements across the West African shelf follow upwelling and water temperature rather than a calendar, which is one reason a record far outside that shelf needs more than a single fish behind it.
Distribution
Atlantic Ocean: southern and eastern parts of Mediterranean Sea, also penetrating the Suez Canal , and eastern Atlantic Ocean, from Gibraltar southward to Angola and a single recorded specimen from Walvis Bay in Namibia
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
A West African shoaling clupeid of enormous commercial importance and minor angling interest, taken on small metal, feathers and fine baits, and used as bait for larger fish. It is named in a Madeiran shore-angling catch table at 0.01% of the estimated total, and that record is treated here as unresolved rather than as a range statement.
Handling and returning
Small, soft, heavily scaled and very easily damaged. Wet hands if it is to be returned at all; a sardinella handled dry will not survive. Nothing on it can hurt a hand.
Safety
Fish welfare — Minor injury
Clupeids of this kind lose scales and slime on any dry contact and die from the handling rather than from the hook.
What reduces it: Wet hands or no hands, unhook over water, and accept that a shoaling clupeid taken on small hooks is usually a bait or table fish rather than one that can be released well.
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 Sardinella maderensis.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 Vulnerable assessment for Sardinella maderensis, assessed 23 July 2014.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- 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 species is recorded in the recreational shore-angling catch of the Madeira archipelago, at 0.01% 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 species is fished — tackle, method and the ground it is taken over.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
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.
European sardine
Sardina pilchardus is common in Madeiran waters, appears in the same catch table at 0.13%, and is one of the two fish the survey names as standard natural bait there. Sardinella maderensis is a West African shelf fish that FishBase does not record from Madeira. The sardine carries rows of dark spots along the flank and distinct radiating ridges on the gill cover; the sardinella is brassier, unspotted, and has the last two anal rays enlarged.
- 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
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.
Feathering and multi-lure traces
Where it is abundant on the West African shelf it is taken in shoals on strings of small lures and fine baits, overwhelmingly for food and for bait rather than for sport. The method is the standard one for any small shoaling clupeid within reach of a shore cast.
- FAO Species Identification Guides for Fishery Purposes and the FAO Species Catalogues — Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Identification, distribution, habitat and fishery description from the FAO species identification guides for fishery purposes.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- General angling website restatements of established technique — Various (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: The widely restated practitioner account of how this species is fished.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
Where it lives
Backed by research — 1 connection
Supported by peer-reviewed research or fisheries science. The sources are listed and can be checked.
Open ocean
Recorded as pelagic-neritic and oceanodromous from the surface to 80 m in marine and brackish water, from Gibraltar south to Angola and in the southern and eastern Mediterranean. Madeira is not in that range, which is why its single appearance in a Madeiran catch table is held rather than carried.
- 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 Sardinella maderensis.States this directlyPassage read and verified
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy.