A dark grouper covered in small blue spots ringed in black, with pale bars across the back half that come and go with mood. Up to 60 cm (24 in), perched on a coral head in plain view - one of the most conspicuous groupers on a healthy reef here.
A male holds a territory containing several females and patrols it constantly, and the harem is stable enough that researchers can map the boundaries. Everything begins as female, and the largest fish becomes the male.
It is also the standard warning about moving fish around. Hawaii (🇺🇸 United States) introduced this species in the 1950s to build a fishery; it spread across the whole archipelago, the fishery never happened because the flesh carries ciguatera and nobody would buy it, and the fish now accounts for a large share of the predator biomass on Hawaiian reefs while eating the native fish the state was trying to protect. Bounty programs to remove it have run for years.
Here it belongs, and it hunts small fish and crustaceans from a perch in short ambush rushes, mostly at the ends of the day.
The genus. Cephalopholis Bloch & Schneider 1801 - cephalus (head) + pholis (scale). ETYFish
- dark brown-blue body covered in small blue spots ringed black
- five or six pale bars across the rear half, appearing and fading
- pale rear edges to the tail and the soft dorsal fin
- length up to 60 cm
Why it's threatened
Overfishing is a potential threat to this species on a localized level, and fishing pressure has been increasing in some areas.
Threat classification from the IUCN Red List.
