Red mullet

Taxobox
name = Red mullet
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Actinopterygii
ordo = Perciformes
familia = Mullidae
genus = "Mullus"For species see text.

The red mullets or surmullets are two species of goatfish, "Mullus barbatus" and "Mullus surmuletus", found in the Mediterranean Sea, east North Atlantic Ocean, and the Black Sea. Both "red mullet" and "surmullet" can also refer to the Mullidae in general.

Though they can easily be distinguished—"M. surmuletus" has a striped first dorsal fin—their common names overlap in many of the languages of the region. In English, "M. surmuletus" is sometimes called the "striped" red mullet.

They are both favored delicacies in the Mediterranean, and in antiquity were "one of the most famous and valued fish". They are very similar, and cooked in the same ways. "M. surmuletus" is perhaps somewhat more prized. [Davidson, p. 109]

Despite the English name "red mullet", these fishes of the goatfish family "Mullidae" are not closely related to many other species called "mullet", which are members of the grey mullet family "Mugilidae".

The word "surmullet" comes from the French, and ultimately probably from a Germanic root "sor" 'reddish brown'. [American Heritage Dictionary "s.v." [http://www.bartleby.com/61/72/S0917200.html surmullet] ]

In Popular Culture

Red mullets can be seen in ceratin mini games from the MMOG game Club Penguin.

References

* Alan Davidson, "Mediterranean Seafood", Penguin 1972, ISBN 0-14-046174-4

Notes

External links

* [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/wine/mullus.html James Grout: "The Red Mullet and Rome"] , part of the "Encyclopædia Romana"