[4][5] The first scientific description comes from Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of Systema Naturae as Sparus boops.

[6] The species is found off the coasts of Europe, Africa, the Azores and the Canary Islands, from Norway to Angola, and in the Mediterranean and Black Seas.

[8] When cleaned and pan fried, broiled or baked fresh, they are good tasting, but when stored their gut flora soon spread unpleasant flavors to their flesh.

[10][11] The bogue is host to a wide variety of parasites, ranging from metazoans such as monogenean flatworms (e.g. Microcotyle isyebi[12] and Cyclocotyla bellones) acanthocephalan spiny-headed worms, nematode roundworms, isopod and copepod crustaceans and myxozoan cnidarians to the unicellular dinoflagellate Ichthyodinium chabelardi, a parasite lethal to eggs developing in ovaries.

[13] In the aftermath of the 2002 Prestige oil spill, the community of parasitic species inhabiting bogue caught off the coast of Spain was noticeably altered.