Jewel grouper
| Jewel grouper | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Jeweled grouper ( Cephalopholis miniata ) |
||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Cephalopholis miniata | ||||||||||||
| ( Forsskål , 1775) |
The jewel grouper ( Cephalopholis miniata ) or jewel perch is a member of the grouper up to 45 centimeters long . Its color is striking red with small blue spots.
distribution
It lives in the Red Sea and the Indo-Pacific from the coast of East Africa to southern Japan and to Lord Howe Island in regions with high currents such as reef channels and outer reefs at depths of 2 to over 150 meters. It is absent in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman .
features
The color of the jewel grouper is red-orange to red-brown with numerous bright blue dots, the diameter of which is smaller than the diameter of the pupil. The front body is usually a little darker. The rear edge of the caudal fin, as well as the soft radiating part of the dorsal and anal fin are blue and black. The pectoral fins are orange, the pelvic fins orange-red. Under stress, the jewel grouper gets some faint, olive-tinted, vertical stripes. The fry are yellow with a few blue spots.
Jewel groupers have a typical perch shape with a front, hard-nosed and a rear, soft-nosed dorsal fin. The fin rays from the fifth to the eighth are the longest. In front of the nostrils, the snout is bare, the body is covered by cycloid scales. The total number of gill trap rays is 20 to 24.
- Fin formula : Dorsal IX / 14–15, Anale III / (8) -9.
- Scale formula : mLR 94–114, SL 47–55.
Way of life
Like all saw basses , jewel groupers will go through a sex reassignment process during their lifetime. They are females first and later switch to the male sex. Therefore the males are always bigger. The jewel grouper forms harem groups made up of a dominant male and two to twelve females. The territory of the males can be up to 475 m². Within the large area of the males, the females defend smaller sub-areas. The jeweled grouper feeds more than 80% on small fish, mostly the jeweled anthias ( Pseudanthias squamipinnis ) is the victim. The remaining part of the prey consists of crustaceans .
literature
- Hans A. Baensch / Robert A. Patzner: Mergus Sea Water Atlas Volume 7 Perciformes (perch-like) , Mergus-Verlag, Melle, 1998, ISBN 3-88244-107-0 .
Web links
- Coral Grouper on Fishbase.org (English)
- Cephalopholis miniata inthe IUCN 2013 Red List of Endangered Species . Posted by: Cabanban, AS, Kulbicki, M., Fennessy, S., Heemstra, PC & Yeeting, B., 2008. Retrieved January 25, 2014.