It is especially active at dusk. During the day, it stays on the bottom. It can close it eyes with a sort of eyelids. Its flesh is edible, but it liver is toxic! Its eggs can be incubated and hatched in an aquarium.

It is very aggressive towards fishes from its species, except during the breeding season: In the spring, at nightfall, a pair forms and performs a complex courtship. It is a synchronous hermaphrodite: male and female at the same time. Very curious, it often approach divers.

During breeding, the bream groups enter lagoons and estuaries to mate. Sought after since the Antiquity for the quality of its meat: the Romans fattened bream in tanks. Its intensive pisciculture has developed since the 80s.

During the day it feeds on plankton near the surface. It descends to the bottom before dark to capture small invertebrates. The male is more colorful than the female. It is a protogynous hermaphrodite species: females become males. Its flesh is not appreciated.

It differs from other species of wrasses because of the elongated shape of it head. Those who live in the Posidonia meadows (underwater flowering plants) are entirely green. The male builds a nest of seaweed and gravel where it distributes the eggs until they hatch.

It is one of the most colorful Mediterranean fish. The female has a black spot on the dorsal fin. The stain will disappear and its color becomes more vivid when it will change sex (hermaphroditism protogynous). It is more abundant in the northern Mediterranean.