---
title: Tiger Grouper (Epinephelus fuscoguttatus)
scientific_name: Epinephelus fuscoguttatus
common_name: Tiger Grouper
taxon: Groupers
conservation_status: VU - Vulnerable
published: 2024-11-07T00:28:05.811Z
updated: 2026-08-13T16:21:15.028Z
tags: Tiger Grouper, Epinephelus fuscoguttatus, Groupers, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/groupers/tiger-grouper
---

# Tiger Grouper (*Epinephelus fuscoguttatus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Groupers (*Epinephelidae*)
- **Size:** up to 120 cm
- **Weight:** 11 Kg
- **Depth:** 1-60 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Coral-rich reef and lagoon, resting on the bottom by day
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Protogynous hermaphrodite
- **Hazard:** Poisonous
- **Conservation status:** VU - Vulnerable

## How to recognise it

- brown marbling in irregular blotches over a pale body
- dark saddle on the tail base
- head noticeably small for the depth of the body
- usually motionless on the bottom, not hovering
- length up to 120 cm

A heavy marbled grouper to 120 cm (4 ft), lying on the bottom beside a coral head and unwilling to move for a diver until the last moment. Sits, ambushes, swallows whole - a mouth that opens into a volume rather than a bite.

Once a year it does the opposite of everything above. Fish leave their home reefs and travel, in some cases tens of kilometers, to a specific site at a specific moon phase, and gather there by the hundred to spawn. The same corners of the same reefs are used year after year, for generations.

That predictability is the whole conservation problem. A fishery that finds an aggregation can take the breeding stock of an entire region in a few nights, and aggregations that have been fished out do not re-form. The species is Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List for exactly this reason, and where big groupers are still routine, someone is protecting a site.

It starts female and turns male with size, so the largest fish are the males - which means removing the big ones removes the breeders twice over. Large individuals have caused ciguatera poisoning in some regions; the flag on this card is about the table rather than about the reef.

## Also known as

- **English:** brown-marbled grouper, Tiger Grouper, black rockcod
- **French:** Mérou marron
- **Spanish:** Mero Manchado
- **Japanese:** アカマダラハタ, Akamadarahata
- **Chinese:** 棕点石斑鱼, 棕點石斑魚, 老虎斑
- **TGL:** Garopa
- **TH:** ปลาเก๋าเสือ

## Scientific synonyms

- *Ephinephelus fuscoguttatus* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Epinephelus fuscogutatus* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Epinephelus fuscuguttatus* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Epinephelus lutra* (Valenciennes, 1832)
- *Perca summana fuscoguttata* Forsskål, 1775
- *Serranus fuscoguttatus* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Serranus horridus* Valenciennes, 1828
- *Serranus lutra* Valenciennes, 1832
- *Serranus taeniocheirus* Valenciennes, 1830

## Range

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

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