About Parapristipoma octolineatum (Valenciennes, 1833)
This species, commonly called the African striped grunt, has an elongated body, large eyes, and a large oblique mouth with a prominent chin and short snout. It has a continuous dorsal fin with 13 spines and 14 to 15 soft rays, while its anal fin has 3 spines and 7 soft rays. While it appears black underwater, its actual upper body is brownish, and its lower body is silvery. Four white horizontal stripes run along each flank, with two of these stripes passing through the black eyes. All fins are yellow, and the caudal fin is a more vivid yellow than the other fins. The maximum recorded standard length for this species is 50 cm (20 in), and the more common standard length is 25 cm (9.8 in). The African striped grunt is distributed in the eastern Atlantic Ocean. Its range extends along Africa's western coast from Angola in the south northward to Morocco, and includes the Gulf of Guinea islands, the Macaronesian Islands, the southern Iberian Peninsula, and the southern Mediterranean Sea as far east as Tunisia. Vagrant individuals have been recorded in the Bay of Biscay off the western coast of France. This grunt inhabits depths between 2 m (6 ft 7 in) and 180 m (590 ft 7 in). It lives over sandy and rocky substrates, and feeds on crustaceans and molluscs. Males and females form separate pairs to spawn, and juvenile African striped grunts move inshore to establish territories.
