Dark with pale-ringed blue spots, and able to switch on five pale bars in seconds.
To about 60 cm, dark brown to purple-black covered in small blue spots each ringed in darker pigment, usually with five or six pale vertical bars over the rear half that the fish can display or suppress within seconds. The pale bars are the quickest separation from the coral grouper, whose spots are solid blue on an orange ground.
It is a resident ambush predator of coral reef and rubble, holding a territory that a male defends and shares with several females. It takes small fish and crustaceans and hunts most actively at first and last light. It is one of the more approachable groupers, often resting in the open on a coral head. Recorded from about 2 to 45 m.
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.
