Giant grouper

bony fish

caudal fin is slightly rounded. There are 54 to 62 scales in its lateral line.^[3] 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.^[4] The giant grouper can grow to huge size with the maximum recorded standard length being 270 centimetres (110 in), although they are more common around 180 centimetres (71 in), and a maximum published weight of 400 kilograms (880 lb).^[2]

Cocos (Keeling) Islands and the Elizabeth and Middleton Reefs Marine National Park Reserve in the Tasman Sea. There have also been reports from the Younghusband Peninsula in South Australia^[4] and north eastern New Zealand.^[1] It is absent from the Persian Gulf^[2] but it is present off the coast of Pakistan and southern Oman.^[1] It has been listed as a potential invasive species in the Bahamas but its presence in that region requires verification.^[5]

territories on the outer reef and in lagoons. They have also been caught in turbid water over silt or mud sea beds by prawn fishermen.^[1] 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.^[6] Fish which inhabit coral reefs and rocky areas favour spiny lobsters as prey; a 177-centimetre (70 in) specimen taken off Maui 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.^[3] 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.^[6]

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.^[7] 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.^[8]

E. quinquefasciatus, which was then regarded as a synonym of E. itajara) to the genus Promicrops but in 1972 this was designated as a subgenus of Epinephelus. However, these species are still each other's closest relatives.^[3]

E. fuscoguttatus.^[1]