Red-brown, spotted violet, with a crescent tail edged in a clean yellow band that is visible at any distance. That tail is the fastest identification of any grouper here - the rest of the family carries rounded or square tails, and this one is cut like a mackerel's.
The shape follows the habit. Where the hinds perch on coral heads and ambush, this fish patrols a stretch of outer reef in open water and runs prey down, which needs a tail built for continuous swimming rather than a two-length pounce.
It is one of the reef fishes most often implicated in ciguatera. Large individuals concentrate the toxin from the food chain below them, the poison survives cooking, and this species is on the do-not-eat list across much of the Indo-Pacific - which is unusual for a fish this valuable at market.
All of them mature as females and the largest become males, so a big lyretail is decades of growth in one animal, and a reef stripped of the largest fish loses its males first.
The species.Variola louti (Fabricius 1775) - Arabic name for this fish. ETYFish
How to recognise it
deep crescent tail with a broad yellow margin all along the trailing edge
red to orange-brown body covered in small blue-violet spots
yellow edges on the other fins too, and a yellow patch behind the pectoral
Declines in this species have been observed in areas where it is frequently directly targeted by grouper fisheries, such as in the Maldives and Mariana Islands; however, this is not considered a major threat on a global-level at this time.
Threat classification from the IUCN Red List.
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