The larger western species, reaching over a metre and living for several decades. Slow-growing and easily fished out, so it is common only where it is protected.
To 175 cm and about 40 kg, and up to roughly seventy years old, which makes it one of the longest-lived wrasses. Juveniles are greenish, sometimes with pale spots across the back; females greyish to red; males greyish to blue. The heavy build, thick lips and strong peg-like teeth are the same at every stage.
The eastern blue groper meets it in Victoria and is otherwise separated by geography. The eastern fish has more lateral-line scales and blue scribbles around the eye.
Five to sixty-five metres on exposed coastal rock. It prises urchins, molluscs and abalone off the rock with the peg teeth. Dominant males hold a group of one or two females and several subadults.
Listed as Vulnerable, and the reasons are all in the life history: it matures at fifteen to twenty years and about 65 cm, and dominant females do not change to male until about 82 cm and thirty to thirty-five years. A slow, late, site-faithful fish is easy to fish out. Fully protected in Victoria and partly protected in South and Western Australia.
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.