Fig. 289.—Red Goatfish, or Salmonete, Pseudupeneus maculatus Bloch. Family Mullidæ (Surmullets.)
The Surmullets, or Goatfishes: Mullidæ.—The Mullidæ (Surmullets) are shore-fishes of the warm seas, of moderate size, with small mouth, large scales, and possessing the notable character of two long, unbranched barbels of firm substance at the chin. The dorsal fins are short, well separated, the first of six to eight firm spines. There are two anal spines and the ventral fins, thoracic, are formed of one spine and five rays. The flesh is white and tender, often of very superior flavor. The species are carnivorous, feeding chiefly on small animals. They are not voracious, and predaceous fishes feed freely on them. The coloration is generally bright, largely red or golden, in nearly all cases with an under layer, below the scales, of red, which appears when the fish is scaled or placed in alcohol. The barbels are often bright yellow, and when the fish swims along the bottom these are carried in advance, feeling the way. Testing the bottom with their feelers, these fishes creep over the floor of shallow waters, seeking their food.
The numerous species are all very much alike in form, and the current genera are separated by details of the arrangement of the teeth. But few are found outside the tropics.
The surmullet or red mullet of Europe, Mullus barbatus, is the most famous species, placed by the Romans above all other fishes unless it be the scarus, Sparisoma cretense. From the satirical poets we learn that "enormous prices were paid for a fine fish, and it was the fashion to bring the fish into the dining-room and exhibit it alive before the assembled guests, so that they might gloat over the brilliant and changing colors during the death-agonies." It is red in life, and when the scales are removed, the color is much brighter.
It is an excellent fish, tender and rich, but nowhere so extravagantly valued to-day as was formerly the case in Rome. Mullus surmuletus is a second European species, scarcely different from Mullus barbatus.
Fig. 290.—Golden Surmullet, Mullus auratus Jordan & Gilbert. Wood's Hole, Mass.
Equally excellent as food and larger in size are two Polynesian species known as kumu and munu (Pseudupeneus porphyreus and Pseudupeneus bifasciatus). Mullus auratus is a small surmullet occasionally taken off our Atlantic coast, but in deeper water than that frequented by the European species. Pseudupeneus maculatus is the red goatfish or salmonete, common from Florida to Brazil, as is also the yellow goatfish, Pseudupeneus martinicus, equally valued. Many other species are found in tropical America, Polynesia, and the Indies and Japan. Perhaps the most notable are Upeneus vittatus, striped with yellow and with the caudal fin cross-barred and the belly sulphur-yellow, and Upeneus arge, similar, the belly white. The common red and black-banded "moana" or goatfish of Hawaii is Pseudupeneus multifasciatus.
No fossil Mullidæ are recorded, so far as known to us.