Scorpaena scrofa was first formally described in 1758 by Carl Linnaeus in the 10th edition of his Systema Naturae in which he gave the type localities as the Mediterranean Sea at Rome and Marseille.

[5] The specific name scrofa means "a breeding sow" in Latin, presumed to derive from scrofano and scrofanello, which are Italian names for the black scorpionfish (S. porcus) and this species, similar to the Old English "hogfish", possible an allusion to Renaissance mistranslations of Athenaeus' observation that scorpionfishes fed on algae or weed, that led to the belief that these fishes live and feed on mud.

[7] Its colouration ranges from brick red to a light pink, and it has dark-coloured blotches on its body.

It is also found in the eastern Atlantic Ocean around the British Isles, where it is rare, south to Senegal, the Canary Islands, and Cape Verde.It is also found in the Azores Island of São Miguel;[3] It is also found from Namibia south and east along the coast of South Africa into the western Indian Ocean, its otherwise circum-African distribution is interrupted between Guinea and Namibia where it is apparently replaced by the spotted-fin scorpionfish (S. stephanica).

[9] Scorpaena scrofa is demersal and lives in marine and brackish environments with rocky, sandy, or muddy bottoms at depths of 20–500 m (66–1,640 ft).