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Salema porgy

Fish · Last reviewed 2026-08-23

A gold-striped, weed-grazing sparid that shoals over shallow rock and seagrass from the Canaries to the Mediterranean — and one of the very few fish with a documented hallucinogenic effect when eaten.

Safety: contamination and toxins in the catch — can cause injury needing treatment. One more point applies here.

What each one does, and what reduces it ↓

Contamination and toxins in the catch — Can cause injury needing treatment

Salema is one of a small number of fish associated with ichthyoallyeinotoxism — a self-limiting hallucinogenic reaction beginning some hours after eating and lasting up to a day or two, reported in published medical case reports from the Mediterranean. It is thought to derive from compounds in the algae the fish grazes rather than from spoilage, so freshness and normal cooking do not prevent it.

What reduces it: Treat it as a fish to return rather than to eat. Cooking does not remove the compound and the fish gives no sign of carrying it. Anybody affected should be assessed medically rather than left alone, because the reaction is frightening and is easily mistaken for something more serious.

Catching Salema porgy

Everything here on fishing for it. Each entry opens the page behind it.

Methods
Ground
When
Mar — months recorded at the places that document it, not a season for the whole range.
Where
29 places FishingHQ documents — strongest claim anywhere: regular local target · From the shore

The salema is easy to recognise and easy to underrate. It is a slim silver sparid with about ten narrow golden lines running the length of the flank and a black spot at the pectoral base, and it moves in tight shoals over shallow rock, boulder and seagrass on almost every Canarian and Mediterranean coast.

It is a grazer rather than a predator — an adult salema eats weed — and that is what makes it awkward to catch deliberately. It comes to bread, weed and small pieces of worm under a float, and it is far more often caught by anglers fishing for something else. Spearfishers meet it constantly.

The reason it is worth its own page is the eating rather than the catching. Salema is one of a very small number of fish associated with ICHTHYOALLYEINOTOXISM: a documented, self-limiting hallucinogenic reaction after eating, reported from the Mediterranean and thought to derive from something in the algae the fish grazes. It is not common, it is not fatal, and it is real — cases have been published in the medical literature. FishingHQ records it because an angler who takes one home has a right to know, and because it is exactly the sort of fact a general fish list leaves out.

How it is caught

Where Salema porgy 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.

Madeira

11 documented places

6 more places here

2 more documented places on this coast

Lanzarote

4 documented places

1 more place here

Canary Islands

9 documented places

6 more places here

Tenerife

4 documented places

  • Garachico · Rock platformRecorded here · from the shore
  • Bajamar · Rock platformRecorded here · from the shore
  • Candelaria · Rock platformRecorded here · from the shore
1 more place here

The Azores

1 documented place

What these strengths mean
Regular local target
Fishing sources describe this as a normal local target here, not merely as caught.
Recorded here
At least one credible public account of this species being caught here. That is all it means.

Browse fishing places by part of the world

Identification

No photograph of Salema porgy has passed identity review yet, so none is shown. A photograph is published only once somebody has checked the animal in it against the diagnostic features described on this page.

Scientific name
Sarpa salpa
Family
Sparidae
Water
Saltwater, Brackish
Conservation status
Least Concern
Regions
Mediterranean, Western Europe, West Africa, East & Southern Africa
  • About ten narrow, evenly spaced golden lines running the length of a silver flank — more numerous and more regular than the bogue's three to five.
  • A black spot at the base of the pectoral fin.
  • Small mouth set low, with the cutting incisors of a grazer rather than the canines of a predator.
  • Relatively slender body, shoaling tightly over shallow rock and weed.

Size

Typical
200–500 g (7 oz–1.1 lb)
Large
700 g–1.2 kg (1.5–2.6 lb)

Exceptional: FishBase records a maximum of 51 cm

Lifecycle and reproduction

Benthopelagic and oceanodromous over a depth range of about 5 to 70 m, shoaling throughout life. FishBase records LOW resilience, which is worth noting for a fish this abundant.

Protandrous: fish mature first as males and change to female with age, which is the reverse of the pattern in most of the sparids around it.

Feeding and senses

Adults graze algae from shallow rock and seagrass; juveniles take small crustaceans. The diet is the reason it is hard to target and the suspected reason for the eating reaction associated with it.

A daylight visual grazer in clear shallow water. The shoaling is a defence rather than a hunting formation, and the fish are alert to movement above them in a way that makes them hard to approach even where they are numerous.

Through the year

Resident year-round on island coasts, moving with the growth of the weed it grazes and with temperature rather than migrating. A shoal seen on a mark in January is the same population as the one seen there in July.

Distribution

Eastern Atlantic: Bay of Biscay and Strait of Gibraltar to Sierra Leone, including Madeira, the Canary Islands, and Cape Verde; Congo to South Africa. Also present in the Mediterranean

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

Ubiquitous on shallow Canarian and Mediterranean rock and a constant incidental catch on light float tackle and a constant sight to spearfishers, but rarely a deliberate target because it grazes weed rather than taking baits. Its practical significance to an angler is knowing what it is, and knowing about the eating reaction before deciding what to do with it.

Handling and returning

Soft-mouthed and easily damaged. Wet hands, quick unhooking and prompt release. Anybody keeping one should read the hazard note below first.

Safety

Contamination and toxins in the catch is set out at the top of this page, where it cannot be missed.

Injury while handling fish — Minor injury

Sharp dorsal spines on a fish usually landed over rock.

What reduces it: Handle with the dorsal folded and unhook with a disgorger or pliers.

Further safety reading

Where to go next

Similar and related fish

  • Bermuda sea chubThe two weed-eaters of Macaronesian rock — and the reason bread is a bait here.
  • Saddled seabreamConstantly confused, and not alike once both have been seen.

Where it lives

  • Rocky shores and reefsShallow algal rock, which is the other half of the same diet.
  • Seagrass bedsAn adult salema eats weed, so the ground it holds over is the ground that grows it.

Told apart from

  • BogueTwo gold-striped silver sparids that shoal on the same ground. Count the stripes and look at the eye.

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 Sarpa salpa.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 Sarpa salpa, assessed 17 August 2009.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
  • Canary Islands regional angling guidance sites — Various Canary-based angling and island guidance publishers (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: Which species Canary shore anglers target from rock, mole and beach, with the techniques and baits the Spanish-language regional guidance describes.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
Why the 7 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.

  • Bermuda sea chub

    Kyphosus sectator and Sarpa salpa are the two substantially HERBIVOROUS fish in a Madeiran catch table otherwise made of predators and shell-crushers, both grazing algae off shallow rock in shoals. The Madeiran creel survey records that 77.9% of the archipelago's shore anglers fish BREAD, which is a bait aimed at these two rather than at the sparids that dominate the catch by weight. Both are deep-bodied and silvery; the salema carries fine golden horizontal stripes and the sea chub does not.

    • 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: The catch composition of the Madeira archipelago's recreational shore fishery, the ground and methods its anglers use, and the baits they fish.States this directlyPassage read and verified

  • Saddled seabream

    Oblada melanura is slim and silver with one black white-ringed spot on the tail wrist and no stripes; Sarpa salpa is deeper-bodied and boldly striped lengthways in gold. Both shoal over the same shallow rock.

    • 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.

  • Float fishing

    Salema is named constantly in Canary shore species lists and never as a deliberate target. The honest edge is that it is caught on the light float tackle used for the shoaling fish, not that it is fished for.

    • Canary Islands regional angling guidance sites — Various Canary-based angling and island guidance publishers (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: Canary shore angling practice: the techniques and tackle used from rock, mole and beach, and the species each is used for.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
    • Guías de zonas de pesca en Canarias — Tenerife, Gran Canaria y Lanzarote — GuíaCanarias (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: The techniques named for Canarian shore fishing — rockfishing, jigging, light bottom fishing and squid jigs — and the species attached to them.States this directlyPassage read and verified

Where it lives

Backed by research — 2 connections

Supported by peer-reviewed research or fisheries science. The sources are listed and can be checked.

  • Rocky shores and reefs

    Recorded over shallow rock as well as seagrass across its eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean range, grazing the algal film on both.

    • 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 Sarpa salpa.States this directlyPassage read and verified

  • Seagrass beds

    Sarpa salpa is recorded as benthopelagic from about 5 to 70 m and as a grazer as an adult; the seagrass and shallow algal rock it feeds on is what determines where it shoals.

    • 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 Sarpa salpa.States this directlyPassage read and verified

Told apart from

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.

  • Bogue

    Boga and salema are the pair a visiting angler most often confuses, and the separation is mechanical rather than a matter of judgement: the bogue has three to five weak stripes and a conspicuously large eye, the salema about ten narrow even ones and a small low mouth.

    • Canary Islands regional angling guidance sites — Various Canary-based angling and island guidance publishers (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: Canary shore angling practice: the techniques and tackle used from rock, mole and beach, and the species each is used for.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
    • Guías de zonas de pesca en Canarias — Tenerife, Gran Canaria y Lanzarote — GuíaCanarias (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: The techniques named for Canarian shore fishing — rockfishing, jigging, light bottom fishing and squid jigs — and the species attached to them.States this directlyPassage read and verified

Safety reading

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.

  • Handling fish safely

    Salema is associated with ichthyoallyeinotoxism — a documented, self-limiting hallucinogenic reaction some hours after eating, reported in published case work and thought to derive from the algae it grazes. Cooking does not prevent it and the fish gives no sign of carrying it, so the decision has to be made before the fish is kept.

    • Canary Islands regional angling guidance sites — Various Canary-based angling and island guidance publishers (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: Canary shore angling practice: the techniques and tackle used from rock, mole and beach, and the species each is used for.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
    • Guías de zonas de pesca en Canarias — Tenerife, Gran Canaria y Lanzarote — GuíaCanarias (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: The techniques named for Canarian shore fishing — rockfishing, jigging, light bottom fishing and squid jigs — and the species attached to them.States this directlyPassage read and verified

How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy.

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