Orange-red and dusted with small blue spots, up to 50 cm (20 in), perched on a coral head with the whole body angled to watch. It is the most conspicuous grouper on a healthy reef here and the easiest to approach, which is why almost every diver has a photograph of one.
It recruits help. Groupers of this species and the related roving corals have been filmed swimming to a resting giant moray and shaking their heads at it in a rapid, unmistakable signal, then leading it to prey hidden in a crevice - and they do it more often when the prey is somewhere they cannot reach themselves. Once at the hole, the grouper can hold a headstand pointing at the spot, which is as close to pointing as anything outside the great apes gets. The work that established this was done on these reefs.
A male holds a territory containing several females and defends it against other males, and every one of them started as a female. Sex change happens on the way up the size ladder, which means the largest fish in a group is always the last one it can afford to lose.
It takes small fish and crustaceans in short ambush rushes from the perch, mostly in the first and last hours of daylight.
The genus. Cephalopholis Bloch & Schneider 1801 - cephalus (head) + pholis (scale). ETYFish
The species. Cephalopholis miniata (Forsskål 1775) - bright red or cinnabar red. ETYFish
- bright orange-red body covered in small blue spots ringed darker
- rounded tail, rounded fins, no spines showing in outline
- sits on a perch and watches, rather than cruising
- length up to 50 cm
Why it's threatened
Threat classification from the IUCN Red List.
