Endangered
Gulf grouper
Mycteroperca jordani
Gulf grouper is a ray-finned fish in the family Serranidae (order Perciformes) — Mycteroperca jordani, recorded as Endangered.
Appearance
The Gulf grouper has an elongate, robust and compressed body that is no deeper at the origin of the dorsal fin than it as the origin of the anal fin. The dorsal fin contains 11 spines and 16-17 soft rays while the anal fin contains 3 spines and 10–11 soft rays. The caudal fin is straight to concave.
It standard length is 3.1 to 3.4 times its depth. The maximum published total length for this species is 198 centimetres (78 in) and the maximum published weight is 91 kilograms (201 lb).
Range and habitat
The Gulf grouper is found in the eastern Pacific Ocean where it is endemic to Mexican waters from San Carlos, Baja California Sur south to Mazatlán. It is found throughout the Gulf of California and around the Revillagigedos Islands. Abundance of the Gulf Grouper has declined significantly since the mid-20th century due to commercial fishing.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
Gulf groupers at a young age tend to prey on different types of fish and invertebrates such as crabs and shrimp. As Gulf Groupers mature, they tend to primarily prey on different fish species.
According to scientists at NOAA fisheries, the Gulf grouper has a large mouth to completely swallow prey whole and the size of their mouth determines the type of fish that they consume. Reproduction period starts in April and ends in June where they gather in packs to form spawning areas that are typically in reefs. The Gulf grouper aggregate into larger groups once a year to form spawning grounds for reproduction.
In crisis
It is thought that overfishing has caused the population to decline by at least 50% over the past 80 years, or so, and so the IUCN have listed it as Endangered. The Gulf grouper population suffers due to toxic chemical runoff such as a gas spill that can greatly affect the water quality for the fish. Restrictions have been placed on fishermen being able to fish for the Gulf grouper because the species is seen as Endangered by the IUCN.
Gulf grouper is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Gulf grouper, Wikidata item Q2109519. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
