The roving coral grouper (''Plectropomus pessuliferus''), also known as the spotted coral grouper, 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 is found in 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 ...

, although the Red Sea taxon, ''P. marisrubri'', is regarded as a separate species by some authorities.

Description

The roving coral grouper has a body which is elongate and robust, with the

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 ...

being 2.9 to 3.9 times the depth of the body. The preopercle is mostly rounded, with three large, downward pointing spines along the bottom half. The gill cover has two skin covered spines on either side of a naked central spine. The dorsal fin contains 7–8 spines and 10–12 soft rays 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 ...

contains 3 spines and 8 soft rays. The spiny part of the dorsal fin has a shorter base than the soft-rayed part. 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 a truncate in adults and emarginate in juveniles. The head, body, and fins are coloured brown to orange-red, with many small blue spots each with dark edges, some of these spots on thehead and flanks are elongated, normally vertically, with much less spotting on the lower body. There is often a blue ring around the eye, although this may be broken. This species attains a total length of .

Distribution

The roving coral grouper is a widespread but quite rare species can be found in the

, 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 ...

, south along the East African coast to Mozambique and Madagascar and east across the Indian Ocean to the

Coral Triangle The Coral Triangle (CT) is a roughly triangular area in the tropical waters around Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Solomon Islands, and Timor-Leste. This area contains at least 500 species of reef-building corals in each ...

of 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 ...

Habitat and biology

These fishes live in coral reef, in shallow lagoon and seaward reefs, at a depth range of 25–147 m. This carnivorous species mainly feed on fishes and crustaceans. They sometimes engage in cooperative hunting with the giant moray ('' Gymnothorax javanicus''), the humphead wrasse ('' Cheilinus undulatus''), or the big blue octopus ('' Octopus cyanea'').Il pesce che quando va a caccia "balla" per chiamare rinforzi
in National Geographic

Taxonomy

The roving coral grouper was first formally described as ''Plectropoma pessuliferum'' by the American

ichthyologist Ichthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish, including bony fish (Osteichthyes), cartilaginous fish (Chondrichthyes), and jawless fish (Agnatha). According to FishBase, 35,800 species of fish had been described as of March 2 ...

Henry Weed Fowler Henry Weed Fowler (March 23, 1878 – June 21, 1965) was an American zoologist born in Holmesburg, Philadelphia, Holmesburg, Pennsylvania. He studied at Stanford University under David Starr Jordan. He joined the Academy of Natural Sciences in Ph ...

(1878–1965) with the type locality given as

Padang Padang () is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Indonesian Provinces of Indonesia, province of West Sumatra. It had a population of 833,562 at the 2010 CensusBiro Pusat Statistik, Jakarta, 2011. and 909,040 at the 2020 Census;Bad ...

Sumatra Sumatra () is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the list of islands by area, sixth-largest island in the world at 482,286.55 km2 (182,812 mi. ...

. Some authorities recognise '' Plectropomus marisrubri'', which

Fishbase FishBase is a global species database of fish species (specifically finfish). It is the largest and most extensively accessed online database on adult finfish on the web.

treats 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 ''P. pessuliferus'', as a valid species., while others as treat it as a subspecies of ''P. pessuliferus'', ''P.p. maristrubri''. Phylogenetic analyses showed that ''P. pessuliferus'', which is a relatively small species and has with a distribution from the central Indian ocean to the

, is the sister species of the Leopard coral grouper (''P. leopardus'') and is not the closest relative of the Red Sea taxon, ''P.p. marisrubri''. File:Serranidae - Plectropomus pessuliferus marisburi.jpg, ''P. p. marisrubri'' File:Serranidae - Plectropomus pessuliferus marisburi-001.jpg, ''P. p. marisrubri'' File:Interspecific-Communicative-and-Coordinated-Hunting-between-Groupers-and-Giant-Moray-Eels-in-the-pbio.0040431.sv004.ogv, A Coordinated Hunting-between Groupers and Giant Moray Eels - video clip

Utilisation

The roving coral grouper is caught using spear, hand lines, gill nets and traps. In the Maldives, it is exported to southeast Asia for sale in the live reef fish trade and it is considered to be of high value.

References

External links

Sous les Mers

* {{DEFAULTSORT:grouper, roving coral roving coral grouper roving coral grouper Articles containing video clips