The brown-marbled grouper or tiger grouper (''Epinephelus fuscoguttatus'') is a

benthic The benthic zone is the ecological region at the lowest level of a body of water such as an ocean, lake, or stream, including the sediment surface and some sub-surface layers. The name comes from ancient Greek, βένθος (bénthos), meaning "t ...

marine fish which belongs to the family Serranidae or also known as the groupers.

Description

''Epinephelus fuscoguttatus'' is a medium-sized fish which grows up to 120 cm, but the average size mostly observed is 50 cm. Its body has a stocky and robust aspect, is compressed laterally and has a sharp profile for the head. The mouth is big and has a superior position with many small teeth and

canine Canine may refer to: Zoology and anatomy * a dog-like Canid animal in the subfamily Caninae ** '' Canis'', a genus including dogs, wolves, coyotes, and jackals ** Dog, the domestic dog * Canine tooth, in mammalian oral anatomy People with the ...

in front. The background coloration is pale yellowish-brown with many irregular in size and shape dark brown or Grey blotches. The body is also covered with many small dark brown spots. All the fins are large and round. The brown-marbled grouper can be easily confused with its close relative ''

Epinephelus polyphekadion The camouflage grouper (''Epinephelus polyphekadion''), also known as the blue-tailed cod, camouflage rockcod, small-toothed rockcod, smooth flowery rock-cod, snout-spot grouper or snout-spot rock-cod, is a species of marine ray-finned fish, a g ...

''. The differences are more obvious on adults specimen. The distinctive characters of the brown-marbled grouper are: a small black saddle on the top of caudal peduncle, when observed on the side a notch above the eyes and the front head is clearly visible, its body is quite thick from the front of the dorsal fin to the bottom of the fish below the pectoral fins.

Distribution and habitat

It is widely distributed throughout the tropical and

subtropical The subtropical zones or subtropics are geographical zone, geographical and Köppen climate classification, climate zones to the Northern Hemisphere, north and Southern Hemisphere, south of the tropics. Geographically part of the Geographical z ...

waters of the

Indo-Pacific The Indo-Pacific is a vast biogeographic region of Earth. In a narrow sense, sometimes known as the Indo-West Pacific or Indo-Pacific Asia, it comprises the tropical waters of the Indian Ocean, the western and central Pacific Ocean, and the ...

, from eastern coasts of Africa to the oceanic islands of the centre of the Pacific Ocean, Red Sea included. However, it is absent from the Persian Gulf, Hawaii and

French Polynesia )Territorial motto: ( en, "Great Tahiti of the Golden Haze") , anthem = , song_type = Regional anthem , song = " Ia Ora 'O Tahiti Nui" , image_map = French Polynesia on the globe (French Polynesia centered).svg , map_alt = Location of Frenc ...

. Like many of the groupers, the brown-marbled grouper lives in rich clear waters close to coral or rocky reefs, lagoons and external slopes from the surface until depth.

Feeding

The brown-marbled grouper is

carnivorous A carnivore , or meat-eater (Latin, ''caro'', genitive ''carnis'', meaning meat or "flesh" and ''vorare'' meaning "to devour"), is an animal or plant whose food and energy requirements derive from animal tissues (mainly muscle, fat and other sof ...

and its diet consists mainly in fishes, crustaceans and

cephalopod A cephalopod is any member of the molluscan class Cephalopoda (Greek plural , ; "head-feet") such as a squid, octopus, cuttlefish, or nautilus. These exclusively marine animals are characterized by bilateral body symmetry, a prominent head ...

s, it is an ambush predator.

Behavior

This grouper is solitary, sedentary, it defends a well defined territory,

and has an

nocturnal Nocturnality is an animal behavior characterized by being active during the night and sleeping during the day. The common adjective is "nocturnal", versus diurnal meaning the opposite. Nocturnal creatures generally have highly developed sens ...

which can be maximal at sunrise and/or at sunset. It has a quite long life span for a fish, it can expect to live until at least 40 years old. It is protogynous hermaphrodite, which means the female can evolved to male during its life.

Protection

The brown-marbled grouper is listed "Vulnerable" on the

IUCN Red List of Threatened Species The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biologi ...

since 2004. Because of its size and hardiness, this species has a high commercial interest for the live food fish trade. However, its biological characteristics make this species particularly vulnerable to

over-fishing Overfishing is the removal of a species of fish (i.e. fishing) from a body of water at a rate greater than that the species can replenish its population naturally (i.e. the overexploitation of the fishery's existing fish stock), resulting in the ...

. Especially during mating periods at specific times and places, the brown-marbled grouper forms spawning aggregations which are easy and attractive targets for fishermen. The long life span of this grouper and its low population density in reefs in the wild result in a weak and slow population regeneration capacity. Furthermore, as fishers prefer to target large fish the brown-marbled groupers are a popular species. That concerns especially males so if the sex ratio between males and females is falling, it will affect the fertilization capacity of the species. It will have the same result on over-fishing females breeders that are highly fertile and would not be able to actively contributing to maintain the proportion of young in the population. Brown-marbled groupers can be cultured by hatcheries but these installations' breeding stock are derived from wild caught fish. Wild capture of breeding stock also has a negative effect on the global population because all the groupers catch in any size category are kept and grown until they reach market size. As ciguatera toxin is common in brown-marbled groupers flesh, this does limit fishing of this species in some geographic areas. Over the last few years, some protective measures or/and sustainable fishing methods have been introduced by many states where spawning aggregation are known, for example Indonesia, Papua New Guinea,

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, Malaysia, Solomon Islands and Palau.

References

External links

*http://www.fishbase.org/summary/4460 * Sugama, K, Rimmer, M, Ismi, S, Koesharyani, I, Suwirya, K, Giri, N.A, and Alava V.R. 2012.
Hatchery management of tiger grouper (Epinephelus fuscoguttatus): a best-practice manual.
* {{Taxonbar, from=Q1239958 Epinephelus Fish of Palau Fish described in 1775 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot