Corb (Umbrina Cirrosa)

Latin name: Umbrina cirrosa
Common name: Corb
Other names: Umber
In other languages: E: Verrugato fusco, F: Ombrine cotière, D: Gewihnlicher Umber
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Perciformes
Family: Sciaenidae
Genus: Umbrina

Distribution: Mediterranean, Black Sea, Atlantic, Red Sea.

Habitat: This drum fish lives over mud or sandy ground down to 100 metres and around old wreck sites where the flora and fauna is well established. Though young ones have been seen in estuaries, this is not a common area for them to be frequenting in their adulthood.

Behaviour: We have seen this fish in the Bay of Gibraltar hovering in cover on wreck sites. On clear days they may be observed browsing over the seabed. It has the habit very much akin to the terrestrial hare, in that when disturbed at a favoured site, it will dash off into the distance in a straight line, only to turn right or left and make a large circular trip back to where it first started from. This round trip however may take as long as ten minutes and for most divers this is a lifetime and too long for lingering in one spot just to see a fish!

Diet: Molluscs, worms and crustaceans.

Size: Common: 30 - 80cm, maximum: 100cm.

Colour: Diagonal golden stripes on the upper back and flanks; underwater they appear yellow or light brown.

Did you know? A similar family member, umbrina canariensis, may be mistaken for this fish though the latter is deeper in body and of smaller size it is nevertheless more common and even more so in the western Mediterranean than the eastern Mediterranean.