Fish
Seventy-four
Polysteganus undulosus
A large, blue-striped southern-African seabream, once heavily overfished - juvenile shoals still gather on some of these reefs.
Also known as 74, seventy four, seventyfour
- Typical size
- Attains ~1 m
- Habitat
- Reef pinnacles and ledges; juveniles shoal
- Depth
- About 20-200 m
The seventy-four is a handsome pinkish seabream with fine blue lines along the body, named - the story goes - for the gun-ports of a 74-gun ship. It grows large and was once a mainstay of the linefishery until stocks collapsed under pressure, so adults are now a prized and cautious catch.
On these reefs it is most often noted as juvenile shoals over the pinnacles and ledges. The species is slow to recover and is treated as a conservation concern, so it is a fish many spearos choose to admire rather than take.
It is illegal to take a Seventy-four