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Fish

Ballan wrasse

Labrus bergylta

Labrus bergylta Ascanius, 1767 · Labridae WoRMS 126965

Reference photos

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Stocky wrasse with thick lips and a long spiny dorsal fin; colours vary from green to red-brown with pale spots.

Depth

1-50 m, usually 2-30 m

Size

Up to 65.9 cm long, commonly 30-50 cm

Habitat

Inshore rocky coasts: weed-covered rock, boulder slopes, offshore reefs and kelp beds, and lower-shore pools

Behaviour

Active by day, hiding in rock crevices and seaweed at night; very small home ranges and high site fidelity

Diet

I eat

  • Crabs and other decapod crustaceans, a major prey group in Irish, Breton and Azorean gut studies
  • Benthic molluscs, mainly mussels and other bivalves, with winkles, top shells and other gastropods taken in smaller amounts
  • Sea urchins and other echinoderms; an important sea-urchin predator in Azorean coastal habitats

Where you'd find it

Found around most of Britain and Ireland, though less often in the waters west of Ireland.

ChannelCeltic SeaNorth SeaIrish SeaW of IrelandW of Scotland
Often seenNow and thenWhere PEBL filmsBased on marine survey records (OBIS). Blank seas can mean nobody has looked there, not that the animal is absent.

Sources

Open-access references behind this page. Every statement on this page was read out of one of them; anything that could not be traced to a source was taken off the page rather than left standing. Each link was checked on the date shown, and confirmed then to be about this species.

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