Species sheet · The Edible Ocean
Sheepshead
That smile is not a trick of the light. Those are teeth.
- Grilled whole with herbs
- Filleted, breaded and pan-fried
- In a coastal chowder
- In French
- Sar mouton
- Scientific name
- Archosargus probatocephalus
- In the water
- Pilings, jetties and rocky bottoms of the western Atlantic, from the shore to 35 metres.
- Season & buying
- Winter and early spring, when it gathers to spawn.
- Common length
- ~45 cm
- How to identify it
- Five or six bold dark vertical bars
Flat incisor teeth, plainly visible
Deep compressed body
On the plate
White, firm, sweet flesh with a shellfish undertone from its diet.
Avoid: Scaling it by hand. Its scales are among the toughest in the Atlantic.
It crushes barnacles and oysters with molars and incisors that look uncannily human, which is why photographs of its mouth go round the internet on a regular basis.
In Umay recipes
One Umay recipe calls for it.
