With the recent red snapper tournament and all the press it has received some people might tend to think that snappers are the only fish in the sea — not so.

One of the most popular groups of sport and commercial fish in the Gulf of Mexico are the groupers.

When we think of groupers, fish like the gag, black and yellow-fin come to mind. But, what most people don’t know is that there are many other species of grouper in the Gulf that we don’t hear very often. This far north in the Gulf we seldom see some of these species in our catches but it’s worth talking about them because one day you’ll end up seeing one.

One unusually colored grouper is the snowy (Epinephelus neveatus). This fish is mostly found in the deeper waters of the southern Gulf but they are caught up this way every now and then. The adults can be picked out from the rest of the catch by the uniform rows of white spots along their backs.

They also have what looks like a small dark saddle just in front of the tail fin. The snowy ranges from Massachusetts to Brazil and in the Pacific from Baja California south to Panama. It’s a large fish in southern waters but around here we only see fish mostly six inches or a little larger.

Anther is the speckled hind (Epinephelus drummondhayi). Unlike the snowy it’s a large fish getting up to 18 inches on average with a maximum of 40 inches. This hind ranges from North Carolina down to Florida and Bermuda and up into the northern Gulf. This fish looks like a four-year-old with a bad case of the measles. It has numerous light colored speckles on a red/brown skin.

The Nassau grouper (Epinephelus striatus) is a large grouper getting up to 50 pounds. It’s very common in the Bahamas but is all too rare in the Gulf.

If you are fortunate enough to land one of these you can you generally can identify it by the faded vertical stripes down its sides. One sure way of identification is to look along the lateral line under the soft part of the dorsal fin. You will see either a W or a Y formed by the striping.

A very curious aspect of a grouper’s life cycle is that it changes sex. All groupers are born females and change to males at some point in their life cycle after they start producing eggs.

Once they change into the male stage they are more aggressive than the females and are the first to be caught out. This causes the females to change to males sooner than they would have without fishing. Since the younger females that are left produce fewer eggs than the older females, over fishing can have a marked effect on grouper populations very quickly.

This sexual phenomenon is called protogynous hermaphroditism and it allows groupers to maintain a balance between the sexes in a reef environment.

Think Global – Act Local!

Dr. “Skip” Lazauski can be seen on the television show “Eco-Bites”, which airs on Mediacom’s channel 14 and Smartel’s channel 4. To reach Dr. Lazauski for questions and comments, send e-mail to IchiOrca@yahoo.com. For more information, see his Web site, www.drskiponline.com