Black Grouper - Mycteroperca bonaci
The Black Grouper, Mycteroperca bonaci, belongs to the family of the Serranidae, subfamily Epinephelinae and includes numerous species of saltwater fish; they are large fish, which generally live in depth and are appreciated for their prized meats. It is a protogynous hermaphrodite fish that lives for a long time, some estimate even over 50 years, and that becomes male around the age of 12. Therefore all large specimens are male.
The black Grouper is a species of marine ray-finned fish, a grouper from the subfamily Epinephelinae which is part of the family Serranidae, Mycteroperca bonaci is found in the western Atlantic where its range extends from Cape Canaveral in Florida and Bermuda south to the Bahamas, into the Gulf of Mexico as far north as Alabama and from southern Texas along the coast of Mexico and Cuba. It occurs throughout the Caribbean Sea, along the coast of South America to Santa Catarina in Brazil.
Black groupers have been recorded forming seasonal feeding aggregations along the outer continental shelf off Brazil, these coincide with spawning aggregations of some fish species the groupers prey on. They are monandric protogynous hermaphrodites and form spawning aggregations which have been reported from in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea. Females attain sexual maturity at around 5 years old and at a length of around 82.6 centimetres and the change of sex to males occurs when they are around 15 years old and at a mean length of 121.4 centimetres.
We met the Black Grouper of the movie during a diving in the coral reef of Cayo Largo is a small resort island in Cuba: is the second largest island in the Los Canarreos Archipelago.
(extract from Wikipedia)
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