Leopard coral grouper
species of fish
The leopard coral grouper (Plectropomus leopardus), also known as the common coral trout, leopard coral trout, blue-dotted coral grouper or spotted coral grouper, is a species of marine ray-finned fish, a grouper from the family Epinephelidae. It is found in the Western Pacific Ocean.
Coral trout are the favourite target fish for all sectors of the fishery because they are a good food fish and command high market prices locally and overseas. The total commercial catch of coral trout was reported at over 1500 tonnes in 1998.
Description
The leopard coral grouper has a body which is elongate and robust, with the standard length being 2.9 to 3.9 times the depth of the body. The preopercle is mostly rounded, with three large, downward pointing spines along the bottom half. The dorsal fin contains 7–8 spines and 10–12 soft rays while the anal fin contains 3 spines and 8 soft rays. The spiny part of the dorsal fin has a shorter base than the soft-rayed part. The caudal fin is a emarginate. The background colour is olive green to reddish brown or orange-red and its upper body is covered in regularly-spaced bright blue spots and there is a blue ring around the eye, this may be broken up.
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This entry incorporates text from “Leopard coral grouper” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.