This species is distributed in the North-Eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea and it has a limited occurrence in the Eastern Central Atlantic. It is a commercial species and is caught by a variety of gears and it is sometimes a target species in sports and recreational fisheries (IUCN 2012). No information about its stock structure nor stock assessments could be found. The Scientific, Technical, and Economic Committee for Fisheries (STECF) database indicates that the main catches by Spain are obtained in the southern Bay of Biscay, Portuguese waters, and the Western Mediterranean Sea by purse seiners.