The Digital Fish Library

Distribution:
Circumglobal in tropical and temperate seas; a few in freshwater.

Habitat:
Mostly demersal over coral and rocky reefs, a few over soft bottoms, from very shallow waters to 500 m, but most found in less than 100 m.

Remarks:
Groupers and Sea Basses are well known for expressing a number of different sexual patterns. Most species are protogynous hermaphrodites that function first in life as females, later changing to function as males. The group also includes a number of species that are simultaneous hermaphrodites and able to function as male or female at the same time, as well some species that are separate sexed.

The larger species eat fish, crustaceans, and cephalopods and the smaller species eat zooplankton. Many species support important fisheries. The largest species can reach nearly 3 m and weigh 400 kg.

This family includes three subfamilies, 64 genera and 475 species. However, recent genetic data indicate that this family may not be monophyletic.

References:
Heemsta & Randall 1993; Heemstra & Randall 1999; Nelson 2006