The bohar snapper is one of the fish most reliably associated with ciguatera, and the reason is that it is large, old, and at the top of a long chain.
The toxins are made by a dinoflagellate that grows on dead coral and algae. Grazing fish eat it, larger fish eat them, and the toxin concentrates at every step without ever being broken down. A big bohar has been accumulating it for decades. Cooking, freezing, smoking and gutting do nothing to it, there is no test that can be run on a boat, and across much of the Pacific this species is simply not eaten above a certain size.
That size takes a long time to reach. The species matures at eight or nine years old and the oldest recorded individual was fifty-six, which makes a large one older than most of the divers looking at it.
Adults are heavy, blunt-headed and red, and they follow divers. Juveniles do something different: small and brownish, they mix into schools of Chromis damselfish and travel with them, using the company as cover to get close enough to take one.
The two white spots the name refers to are on juveniles and some adults. The biggest fish lose them entirely.
- heavy red to reddish-brown body with a steep rounded forehead
- a groove running from the nostril to the eye
- two silvery white spots below the dorsal fin in juveniles and some adults
- follows divers at close range without hurrying
- up to 90 cm
Why it's threatened
Threat classification from the IUCN Red List.
