The giant grouper (''Epinephelus lanceolatus''), also known as the Queensland groper (grouper), brindle grouper or mottled-brown sea bass, is a species of marine

ray-finned fish Actinopterygii (; ), members of which are known as ray-finned fish or actinopterygians, is a class of bony fish that comprise over 50% of living vertebrate species. They are so called because of their lightly built fins made of webbings of sk ...

, a

grouper Groupers are a diverse group of marine ray-finned fish in the family Epinephelidae, in the order Perciformes. Groupers were long considered a subfamily of the seabasses in Serranidae, but are now treated as distinct. Not all members of this f ...

from the

subfamily In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end botanical subfamily names with "-oideae", and zo ...

Epinephelinae Groupers are a diverse group of marine Actinopterygii, ray-finned fish in the family Epinephelidae, in the order Perciformes. Groupers were long considered a subfamily of the seabasses in Serranidae, but are now treated as distinct. Not all m ...

which is part of the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Serranidae Serranidae is a large family (biology), family of fishes belonging to the order Perciformes. The family contains about 450 species in 65 genera, including the sea basses and the groupers (subfamily Epinephelinae). Although many species are small, ...

, which also includes the anthias and sea basses. It has a wide

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 ...

distribution and is one of the largest extant species of

bony fish Osteichthyes ( ; ), also known as osteichthyans or commonly referred to as the bony fish, is a Biodiversity, diverse clade of vertebrate animals that have endoskeletons primarily composed of bone tissue. They can be contrasted with the Chondricht ...

Description

The giant grouper has a robust body which has a

standard length Fish measurement is the measuring of individual fish and various parts of fish anatomy, their anatomies, for data used in many areas of ichthyology, including Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy and fishery biology. Overall length Standard length (SL) is ...

equivalent to 2.4 to 3.4 times its depth. The dorsal profile of the head and the intraorbital area are convex. The propercle has a rounded corner and a finely serrated margin. The gill cover has a convex upper margin. There are 11 spines and 14–16 soft rays in the

dorsal fin A dorsal fin is a fin on the back of most marine and freshwater vertebrates. Dorsal fins have evolved independently several times through convergent evolution adapting to marine environments, so the fins are not all homologous. They are found ...

while the

anal fin Fins are moving appendages protruding from the body of fish that interact with water to generate thrust and help the fish swim. Apart from the tail or caudal fin, fish fins have no direct connection with the back bone and are supported o ...

has 3 spines and 8 soft rays. The

caudal fin Fins are moving appendages protruding from the body of fish that interact with water to generate thrust and help the fish swim. Apart from the tail or caudal fin, fish fins have no direct connection with the back bone and are supported only ...

is slightly rounded. There are 54 to 62 scales in its

lateral line The lateral line, also called the lateral line organ (LLO), is a system of sensory organs found in fish, used to detect movement, vibration, and pressure gradients in the surrounding water. The sensory ability is achieved via modified epithelia ...

. The adults are grayish-brown in colour overlain with a mottled pattern and with darker fins. The small juveniles are yellow with wide, dark irregular bars and irregular dark spots on their fins. The giant grouper can grow to huge size with the maximum recorded

being , although they are more common around , and a maximum published weight of .

Distribution

The giant grouper has a wide

distribution, it is the most widely distributed species of grouper in the world. It occurs from the

Red Sea The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and th ...

and the eastern coasts of Africa as far south as

Algoa Bay Algoa Bay is a maritime bay in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. It is located on the east coast, east of the Cape of Good Hope. Algoa Bay is bounded in the west by Cape Recife and in the east by Cape Padrone. The bay is up to deep. The harbour ...

in South Africa and across the Indian Ocean into the

Western Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...

as far east as the

Pitcairn Islands The Pitcairn Islands ( ; Pitkern: '), officially Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno Islands, are a group of four volcanic islands in the southern Pacific Ocean that form the sole British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory in the ...

and

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

. They occur as far north as southern Japan and as far south as Australia. In Australia it is found from

Rottnest Island Rottnest Island (), often colloquially referred to as "Rotto", is a Islands of Perth, Western Australia, island off the coast of Western Australia, located west of Fremantle. A sandy, low-lying island formed on a base of aeolianite limestone, ...

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

north and east along the tropical coasts of Australia, including offshore reefs, and then south along the eastern coast to Woy Woy, New South Wales. It also occurs around

Christmas Island Christmas Island, officially the Territory of Christmas Island, is an States and territories of Australia#External territories, Australian external territory in the Indian Ocean comprising the island of the same name. It is about south o ...

and Cocos (Keeling) Islands and the Elizabeth and Middleton Reefs Marine National Park Reserve in the

Tasman Sea The Tasman Sea is a marginal sea of the South Pacific Ocean, situated between Australia and New Zealand. It measures about across and about from north to south. The sea was named after the Dutch explorer Abel Janszoon Tasman, who in 1642 wa ...

. There have also been reports from the Younghusband Peninsula in

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

and north eastern New Zealand. It is absent from the

Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf, sometimes called the Arabian Gulf, is a Mediterranean seas, mediterranean sea in West Asia. The body of water is an extension of the Arabian Sea and the larger Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.Un ...

but it is present off the coast of Pakistan and southern Oman. It has been listed as a potential invasive species in the Bahamas but its presence in that region requires verification.

Habitat and biology

The giant grouper is a species of shallow water fish and can be found at depths of . It is associated with reefs and is the largest known bony fish found on reefs. Large specimens have been caught from shore and in harbours. They are found in caves and in wrecks while the secretive juveniles occur in reefs and are infrequently observed. The adults are mainly solitary and hold

territories A territory is an area of land, sea, or space, belonging or connected to a particular country, person, or animal. In international politics, a territory is usually a geographic area which has not been granted the powers of self-government, ...

on the outer reef and in lagoons. They have also been caught in turbid water over silt or mud sea beds by prawn fishermen. The giant grouper is an opportunistic ambush predator which feeds on a variety of fishes, as well as small sharks, juvenile sea turtles, crustaceans and molluscs which are all swallowed whole. Fish which inhabit coral reefs and rocky areas favour spiny lobsters as prey; a specimen taken off

Maui Maui (; Hawaiian language, Hawaiian: ) is the second largest island in the Hawaiian archipelago, at 727.2 square miles (1,883 km2). It is the List of islands of the United States by area, 17th-largest in the United States. Maui is one of ...

in Hawaii had a stomach content of two spiny lobsters and a number of crabs. Fish living in estuarine environments in South Africa were found to be feeding almost exclusively on the crab ''

Scylla serrata ''Scylla serrata'' (often called mud crab or mangrove crab, although both terms are highly ambiguous, and black crab) is an ecologically important species of crab found in the estuaries and mangroves of Africa, Australia, and Asia. In their ...

''. This species is normally solitary and long-lived. They are, however, curious and frequently approach divers closely. They are not generally considered dangerous to humans but divers are advised to treat large specimens with caution and not to hand feed them as there have been reports of large specimen attacking humans.

Reproduction

Like most groupers, giant groupers are protogynous hermaphrodites. They spawn on a lunar cycle, with spawns lasting about 7 days. They are aggregative broadcast spawners, usually with several females per male. Studies in captive populations suggest that the dominant male and female begin the spawning event as nearly the only spawners for the first day or two, but other members of the aggregation fertilize more eggs as the event progresses, with even the most recently turned males fathering offspring. Giant groupers are diandric protogynous hermaphrodites, meaning that although some males develop from reproductively functional females other males start to produce sperm without ever having gone through a phase as a reproductive female.

Taxonomy

The giant grouper was first formally described as ''Holocentras lanceolatus'' in 1790 by the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

medical doctor A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the study, diagnosis, prognosis ...

and

naturalist Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

Marcus Elieser Bloch Marcus Elieser Bloch (1723–1799) was a German physician and naturalist who is best known for his contribution to ichthyology through his multi-volume catalog of plates illustrating the fishes of the world. Brought up in a Hebrew-speaking Jewish ...

(1723–1799) with the type locality given as the

East Indies The East Indies (or simply the Indies) is a term used in historical narratives of the Age of Discovery. The ''Indies'' broadly referred to various lands in Eastern world, the East or the Eastern Hemisphere, particularly the islands and mainl ...

Felipe Poey Felipe Poey (May 26, 1799 – January 28, 1891) was a Cuban zoologist. Biography Poey was born in Havana, the son of French and Spanish parents. He spent several years (1804 to 1807) of his life in Pau, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Pau then studied ...

assigned the giant and goliath groupers ('' Epinephelus itajara'' and '' E. quinquefasciatus'', which was then regarded as a

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...

of ''E. itajara'') to the

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

''Promicrops'' but in 1972 this was designated as a

subgenus In biology, a subgenus ( subgenera) is a taxonomic rank directly below genus. In the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, a subgeneric name can be used independently or included in a species name, in parentheses, placed between the ge ...

of ''

Epinephelus ''Epinephelus'' is a genus of marine ray-finned fish, groupers from the subfamily Epinephelinae, part of the family Serranidae, which also includes the anthias and sea basses. They are predatory fish, largely associated with reefs and are fo ...

''. However, these species are still each other's closest relatives.

Use

The giant grouper is a highly valued food fish and is taken by both commercial and recreational fisheries. It is valued in Hong Kong as a live fish for the live reef food fish trade, especially smaller specimens, and its skin, gall bladder, and stomach, are used in

Traditional Chinese Medicine Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an alternative medicine, alternative medical practice drawn from traditional medicine in China. A large share of its claims are pseudoscientific, with the majority of treatments having no robust evidence ...

. This species is cultured in

mariculture Mariculture, sometimes called marine farming or marine aquaculture, is a branch of aquaculture involving the cultivation of marine organisms for food and other animal products, in seawater. Subsets of it include ( offshore mariculture), fish fa ...

and this practice is widespread but there is a restricted supply of juveniles, although hatcheries in Taiwan have produced captive bred juveniles, exporting some for to be grown on in other parts of South-East Asia. Many of the fish produced in

aquaculture Aquaculture (less commonly spelled aquiculture), also known as aquafarming, is the controlled cultivation ("farming") of aquatic organisms such as fish, crustaceans, mollusks, algae and other organisms of value such as aquatic plants (e.g. Nelu ...

are hybrids between this species and '' E. fuscoguttatus''.

Cultural references

The first fish to undergo

chemotherapy Chemotherapy (often abbreviated chemo, sometimes CTX and CTx) is the type of cancer treatment that uses one or more anti-cancer drugs (list of chemotherapeutic agents, chemotherapeutic agents or alkylating agents) in a standard chemotherapy re ...

was Bubba, a giant grouper at the

Shedd Aquarium Shedd Aquarium (formally the John G. Shedd Aquarium) is an indoor public aquarium in Chicago. Opened on May 30, 1930, the aquarium holds about 32,000 animals. It is the third largest aquarium in the Western Hemisphere (after the Georgia Aquariu ...

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

References

External links

''Epinephelus lanceolatus''
on the

Integrated Taxonomic Information System The Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) is an American partnership of federal agencies designed to provide consistent and reliable information on the taxonomy of biological species. ITIS was originally formed in 1996 as an interagenc ...

Queensland Groper, ''Epinephelus lanceolatus''
from the

Australian Museum The Australian Museum, originally known as the Colonial Museum or Sydney Museum. is a heritage-listed museum at 1 William Street, Sydney, William Street, Sydney central business district, Sydney CBD, New South Wales. It is the oldest natural ...

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q847747 giant grouper Fish of the Indian Ocean Fish of the Pacific Ocean Fish of Hawaii giant grouper Taxa named by Marcus Elieser Bloch