The red porgy, Pagrus pagrus , is an important component of the Gulf of Mexico recreational and commercial reef fish fisheries. Yet life history information needed for proper fisheries assessment of this species is inadequate. Marginal-increment analysis indicated that red porgy otoliths form one translucent ring per year during the summer. Ages ranged from 1 to 17 years. The age of full recruitment to both the commercial and recreational fisheries was 4 years, and estimates of total instantaneous mortality ranged from 0.526 to 0.0.622.
Red porgies are protogynous hermaphrodites.
Fecundity was positively correlated with fish length, and batch fecundities ranged from 3,643 to 22,811 oocytes. Cohort-specific variability in mortality was greater than growth, indicating that Z appears to be a more important source of recruitment variability. Knowledge of sex-based characteristics of fish populations is important, particularly with species exhibiting sexually dimorphic growth. For archival and commercial or recreational user-supplied collections, sex may not be available or accurately determined for some or all samples. Classification equations for both species were applied to unknown individuals to determine sex.