Common Name
Striped Grunt
Year Described
Linnaeus, 1758
Identification
Dorsal Fin: XIII, 12-15 (usually 13-14)
Anal Fin: III, 7-9 (usually 8)
Gill Rakers: 28-34 (total on first arch)
Lateral Line Scales: 51-53
Body fusiform and elongate compared to congeners. Mouth small. Soft dorsal and anal fins almost completely scaled. Scale rows under lateral line oblique to body axis. 25-26 scales around caudal peduncle.
Color
Body whitish to silvery with four obvious horizontal body stripes. The lowermost one is thickest, is yellow to brassy, and runs from under the eye to the caudal peduncle. The three others are thinner and yellowish-brown, and run along the dorsal half of the body. There are often additional thinner stripes in between these. The dorsal and caudal fin are yellowish-brown. The pelvic and anal fins are pale.
Size
Common to 18cm TL. Maximum size to 25cm TL.
Habitat
Over reefs and drop-offs up to 100m depth. An open water schooling species that feeds on plankton.
Range
S. Florida to Brazil, including the S. Gulf of Mexico and the entire Caribbean Sea.
References
Lindeman, K.C. 2002. Haemulidae (pp. 1522-1550). In: Carpenter. 2002. The living marine resources of the Western Central Atlantic. Vol. 3: Bony fishes part 2 (Opistognathidae to Molidae). FAO Species Identification Guides for Fisheries Purposes. American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists Special Publication No. 5. FAO of the U.N., Rome.