Thick-lipped Grey Mullet
Chelon labrosus
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Grazes algae off harbour walls, and is notoriously difficult to persuade to take a bait.
A streamlined, silver-grey fish with large scales, faint dark stripes along the flank, two well-separated dorsal fins and — the identifying feature — a notably thick upper lip bearing small bumps. Grey mullet come into the Solway estuary and the tidal Nith through the warmer months, often in shoals working the surface in shallow, muddy water.
Behaviour
Mullet are grazers rather than predators, scraping algae, diatoms and detritus from rocks, walls and mud, and taking in sediment which is ground down in a muscular gizzard-like stomach. They are famously wary and hard to catch. Shoals move into estuaries and harbours with the warming water from May and drop back to sea as temperatures fall in autumn.
Migration
Thick-lipped grey mullet move inshore into estuaries such as the Solway as the water warms in late spring, and retreat to deeper offshore water for the winter — so they are a genuinely seasonal presence here.
When to see it
Quick facts
- Family
- Mullets (Mugilidae)
- Size
- Commonly 30–50 cm
- UK status
- Native; a seasonal estuary visitor
Photo by David Perez, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons