---
title: Malabar Grouper (Epinephelus malabaricus)
scientific_name: Epinephelus malabaricus
common_name: Malabar Grouper
taxon: Groupers
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-07T09:57:35.847Z
updated: 2026-08-13T20:30:23.908Z
tags: Malabar Grouper, Epinephelus malabaricus, Groupers, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/groupers/malabar-grouper
---

# Malabar Grouper (*Epinephelus malabaricus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Groupers (*Epinephelidae*)
- **Size:** up to 234 cm
- **Depth:** 0-150 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Reef, lagoon, estuaries and even brackish water
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Protogynous hermaphrodite
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- pale gray-brown with scattered dark blotches and fine dark spots
- blotches irregular and diffuse, without the tight brown marbling of its relatives
- very large adults, heavy-bodied and thick-lipped
- length up to 234 cm

One of the largest groupers in this sea - over two meters (7 ft) and well past a hundred kilos in the record fish, though nothing near that size survives anywhere people can reach it.

It is also the least fussy about where it lives. This grouper turns up on coral reef, in lagoons, over mud, in estuaries and in water brackish enough that few reef fish will enter it, and the young are routinely found in mangroves and river mouths. That tolerance is why it became one of the mainstays of Asian grouper farming.

On the reef it hunts by ambush from a hole, taking fish and crustaceans with a strike that is mostly suction: the mouth opens, the volume of the head triples, and the prey arrives inside before it has moved.

Like other big groupers it starts female and becomes male with size, which means the largest fish in a population are the breeding males, and they are the ones a spear takes first. Slow growth plus that arrangement is why groupers of this size are now a rare sight rather than a normal one.

## Also known as

- **English:** Malabar grouper, Blackspot Cod, Blackspotted Rockcod
- **Arabic:** هامور مليبار, Hamour
- **Hebrew:** דקר דו-ימי, דקר מלברי
- **French:** Mérou de Malabar, Grand gueule, Mère loche
- **German:** Malabar-Zackenbarsch
- **Spanish:** Mero de Malabar, Mero Malabárico
- **Portuguese:** Garoupa-do-Malabar
- **Dutch:** Malabar Tandbaars
- **Polish:** granik malabarski
- **Czech:** kanic malabarský
- **Japanese:** ヤイトハタ, Yaitohata
- **Chinese:** 來貓, 厲麻, 瑪拉巴石斑魚
- **DA:** Malabar-havaborre
- **FI:** usvameriahven
- **GUJ:** Wekhali, Wekhru
- **ID:** Kerapu lumpur
- **MAR:** Gobra, Hekaru, Hekru
- **MSA:** Kerapu hitam, Kertang
- **TAM:** Kalava
- **TEL:** Bontoo
- **TH:** ปลากะรังน้ำกร่อย

## Scientific synonyms

- *Cephalopholis malabaricus* (Bloch & Schneider, 1801)
- *Epinephalus malabaricus* (Bloch & Schneider, 1801)
- *Epinephelus cylindricus* Postel, 1965
- *Epinephelus malabrica* (Bloch & Schneider, 1801)
- *Epinephelus salmoides* (Lacepède, 1802)
- *Epinephelus salmonoides* (Valenciennes, 1828)
- *Holocentrus malabaricus* Bloch & Schneider, 1801
- *Holocentrus salmoides* Lacepède, 1802
- *Serranus crapao* Cuvier, 1829
- *Serranus estuarius* MacLeay, 1883
- *Serranus polypodophilus* Bleeker, 1849
- *Serranus salmonoides* Valenciennes, 1828
- *Serranus semipunctatus* Valenciennes, 1828
- *Serranus semi-punctatus* Valenciennes, 1828

## Range

Comoros, Djibouti, East Africa, Eritrea, Federal Republic of Somalia, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Madagascar, Mediterranean Sea - Eastern Basin, Mozambique, Red Sea, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/groupers/malabar-grouper)*
*Updated: August 13, 2026*