Pale with dense red-brown spots and dark margins to the fins, sitting on the bottom on reef and rubble.
To about 76 cm, common at 40. Greenish-grey to pale brown above and white below, covered in well-spaced dull orange-red to brown spots on the head, body and fins, with about five faint diagonal bars. The soft dorsal, anal and tail fins have dark margins. There are no dark saddles along the back.
That is the separator from the rock hind, which has three to five dark saddles along the back and a black blotch on the tail base.
One to a hundred metres on shallow coral and rock, and the commonest Epinephelus in the West Indies. Usually solitary and territorial, sitting on the bottom and generally holding for a diver. Some change sex at 28 cm and most fish over 40 cm are male.
It forms well-documented spawning aggregations and makes sound at them, which has been used to track the same aggregations over decades. Those aggregations are the basis of real closures. In United States Caribbean federal waters red hind is closed from 1 December to the end of February west of 67°10’W off Puerto Rico; all fishing is prohibited over the same dates at Tourmaline Bank, Abrir la Sierra Bank and Lang Bank; Bajo de Sico is closed to reef fish through 31 March; and the Hind Bank Marine Conservation District south of St Thomas is closed all year. 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.
