A plain grey-brown snapper of estuaries, mangroves and wrecks, usually in tight schools that part and reform around a diver.
To about 66 cm, though FishBase gives 89. Slimmer than the schoolmaster with a pointed head and a slightly concave forehead. Grey to grey-brown, often with a coppery or reddish cast, and no yellow anywhere on the fins. Strong canines at the front of the upper jaw.
Juveniles are the difficulty. They are more strongly barred than adults and usually carry a blue cheek line, which is the schoolmaster’s mark too. Use the fins: dusky here, always yellow there.
One to a hundred and eighty metres, usually five to fifty. It gathers in large daytime aggregations over reef, rock, wrecks and under ledges and disperses at night for small fish, shrimp, crabs and cephalopods. Juveniles use mangroves, estuaries, seagrass and the lower reaches of rivers, and it tolerates fresh water. Spawning is in summer near the full moon.
Florida sets a 10 inch minimum and five per day. Ciguatera is reported.
Ratings are per location: 1 means found on most dives that look for it, 5 means a handful of records. Where enough dives have been logged the figure is calculated from them; otherwise it is an editorial estimate, and says so. We publish habitat and destination, not the dive site.