Red scorpionfish
Scorpaena scrofa
— Where the name comes from
Scorpaena comes from skorpíos, the scorpion: the dorsal spines are venomous and the comparison is as old as the name. Scrofa is the sow, alluding to the fleshy tags hanging from head and chin, and perhaps to the grunt it gives when lifted out of the water. The ugliest fish in the Mediterranean is also the best-tasting.
— Facts
- Group
- Fish · Actinopterygii · Chondrichthyes
- Order
- Scorpionfishes
- Habitat
- Rocky and coralligenous bottoms between 20 and 200 metres
- Range
- The eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean
- Size
- 30–50 cm, 1–3 kg
- Diet
- Fish, crustaceans, molluscs
- Lifespan
- 15 years
— Characteristics
- 01
The dorsal, anal and pelvic spines are venomous even in a dead fish.
- 02
It changes colour and grows algae until it vanishes among the rocks.
- 03
It sheds its skin whole several times a year, like a snake.
— What sets it apart
There is no bouillabaisse without it. The Marseille soup, like Livorno’s cacciucco and Liguria’s ciuppin, exists because spiny bony rockfish could not be sold and the fishermen kept them for themselves: the flavour the scorpionfish gives the broth is the reason those poor men’s dishes became restaurant dishes. It is one of the cases in which cooking reversed the value of a species, and today the scorpionfish costs more than the fish the fishermen used to sell instead.
