---
title: Potato Grouper (Epinephelus tukula)
scientific_name: Epinephelus tukula
common_name: Potato Grouper
taxon: Groupers
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-07T15:24:18.847Z
updated: 2026-08-13T20:30:23.945Z
tags: Potato Grouper, Epinephelus tukula, Groupers, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/groupers/potato-grouper
---

# Potato Grouper (*Epinephelus tukula*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Groupers (*Epinephelidae*)
- **Size:** up to 200 cm
- **Weight:** 110 Kg
- **Depth:** 10-400 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Rare
- **Habitat:** Deep reef, pinnacles and drop-offs
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Protogynous hermaphrodite
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- pale gray body covered in large dark potato-shaped blotches
- very large, heavy-headed, with thick fleshy lips
- approaches divers head-on and follows them
- length up to 200 cm

Two meters (6.5 ft) of grouper covered in dark potato-shaped blotches, and the one big fish on this reef that comes to look at you rather than leaving.

That behavior is real and well documented. Where they are not hunted, potato groupers approach divers directly, hold station a meter away, and follow along a wall for whole dives. Some individuals at particular sites are known by name to guides over years. Where they are speared, they vanish - and they do not come back, which makes their presence a fair measure of how a reef is treated.

It is an ambush predator with a mouth built for suction, taking fish, rays, crabs and spiny lobsters whole; the lobster armor is no obstacle to something that swallows rather than bites.

Like other big groupers it is protogynous - female first, male later - long-lived and slow to replace. It sits deeper than most of its relatives, from ten meters down to depths well past diving range, which is part of why any are left at all.

## Also known as

- **English:** potato grouper, Black-spotted Rock-cod, Potato Bass
- **French:** Merou Patate, Mérou patate
- **Italian:** Cernia patata
- **German:** Kartoffel-Zackenbarsch
- **Spanish:** Mero Mármol, Mero Patata
- **Portuguese:** garoupa-batata
- **Dutch:** Tukula Tandbaars
- **Czech:** kanic tukula
- **Japanese:** カスリハタ, Kasurihata
- **Chinese:** 藍身大斑石斑魚, 藍身大石斑魚, 過魚
- **AF:** Aartappel-baars
- **DA:** Kartoffelbars
- **TH:** ปลากะรังลายตุ๊กแก

## Scientific synonyms

- *Serranus dispar* Playfair, 1867
- *Serranus dispar a* Playfair, 1867
- *Serranus dispar var. a* Playfair, 1867

## Range

Djibouti, Eritrea, Federal Republic of Somalia, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Madagascar, Mafia Island, Mozambique, Red Sea, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania

---

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