Common Pandora

The common pandora has an oval, compressed body with a straight dorsal profile to the head. The eye has a diameter that is clearly shorter than the length of the snout. The scales on the head extend forward to the level of the front edge of the eyes. The cheeks are scaled while the preoperculum is naked. The fleshy lipped mouth is low and slightly oblique and there are pointed teeth in the front of the jaws while the teeth in the rear of the jaws are molar-like with a band of numerous comb-like teeth inside them. The upper jaw has 2 or 3, sometimes 4, rows of molars while the lower jaws have 2, infrequently 3 rows. The dorsal fin is supported by 12 spines and 10 or 11 soft rays while the anal fin contains 3 spines and 8 or 9 soft rays. The overall colour is bright pink with a scattering of small blue spots on the upper flanks.

The common pandora has a wide range along the eastern shores of the Atlantic Ocean, from the coast of West Africa from Guinea Bissau north to the Strait of Gibraltar including Cape Verde, Madeira and the Canary Islands, throughout the Mediterranean Sea and into the western Black Sea and extends northward in the North Sea as far as Norway. In terms of genetic diversity, there appears to be a high level of connectivity from the Atlantic through the Mediterranean. This demersal fish occurs at depths down to 300 m (980 ft), although it is typically found no deeper than 100 m (330 ft), over sand, mud, rock and gravel substrates. Young fish are found farther inshore than the adults.

The common pandora is an important target species for fisheries in the Mediterranean and Atlantic and there are indications that the stocks are being overfished in a number of areas of the Mediterranean. In Italy this species is one of the most important species of Sparid landed but the total landing has declined from 1,900 t (1,900 long tons; 2,100 short tons) in 2004 to 850 t (840 long tons; 940 short tons) in 2010. The EU has set a minimum size limit for this species being landed of a total length of 150 mm (5.9 in). This fish is caught using fish traps in the Canary Islands as well as bottom trawls, beach seines, line gears, trammel nets and gill nets.