The Grouper Family – Epinephelidae

There are currently THIRTY-FOUR members of the Grouper or Epinephelidae Family, sixteen from the Atlantic Ocean and eighteen from the Pacific Ocean, are presented in this website:

FROM THE ATLANTIC (16):

FROM THE PACIFIC (18):

The Epinephelidae Family is very new, having recently been separated from the Serranidae Family, and has four hundred forty-nine global members that have been placed in sixty-two genera. They are known in Mexico’s fishing areas as cabrilla and garropas.

The largest member of the Epinephelidae Family is the Giant Grouper, Epinephelus laceolatuss that can reach 3 m (10 feet) in length and up to 600 kg (1,320 lbs) in weight. Most of the important groupers utilized for human food consumption are smaller and in the range of 40 cm (16 inches) to 50 cm (20 inches) and 500 grams (1 lb) to 1 kg (2.2 lbs) in weight.  Most are well camouflaged with spots of yellow, green, and brown. The Groupers vary greatly in  morphology but most have a wide body with a large head and mouth.

The Groupers, in general, are slow swimmers over long distances and are classic ambush predators lying in wait for their prey to pass by. They consume fish, small sharks, juvenile sea turtles, octopuses, and spiny lobsters. They have slow growth rates and live between five and fifteen years. Groupers are hermaphroditic starting out life as females and changing to males when they reach about half their lifespan. Most adults have relatively small areas in which they live and feed and one male may have a group of several females. They generally reproduce by spawning at night at certain times of the year and in aggregations. Each female can release up to 1 million eggs which are fertilized by the males. The fertilized eggs hatch into very small larval forms that drift in oceanic currents for one to two months. Less than one in 1,000 of the larval forms survive before they settle out as juveniles in shallow water near reefs. As the juveniles mature they move onto coral reefs and less than one in every 100 survive to become adults. The adults spend the majority of their time on the ocean bottom.

The Groupers represent one of the most important commercial families inhabiting coastal areas of the tropics and subtropics and are found in and around reefs. They are caught using baited hooks and lines, baited traps (primarily for the aquarium trade), gill nets, and spears. Their size, aggressive strikes, and rapid retreats into coral crevices make them a fierce foe for recreational sports fishermen. When they congregate for breeding they become very vulnerable to fishermen. They are heavily overfished and many species have become endangered and are currently the focus of significant conservation efforts. New regulations and restrictions are being implemented which include area closures during spawning season, daily catch limits, rules on fish gear employed, bans on gill nets, bans on night-time spear fishing, and minimum size limits (which is not helpful as it reduces the populations to predominately females).