In recent years, there has been a special kind of grouper on the market, they are like vitiligo, they have a messy white patch on the body, and the body size is more flattened than other groupers, which makes these fish look very strange and very recognizable, and you can immediately find these unusual fish from the fish pile without looking closely.
Taken in Shekou Market, Shenzhen
This brand-new breed is called "Rat Dragon Spot", and anyone who is more familiar with grouper can guess that this name is condensed from the two kinds of fish "Rat Spot" and "Dragon Spot", in fact, the Rat Dragon Spot is indeed this origin. The mother of the Grouper is epinephelus altivelis, a new species of grouper hybrid breeding that has only recently been introduced to the market, and its mother is epinephelus altivelis, commonly known as "diplodollus" or "gentian grouper".
Juvenile humpback perch Epinephelus altivelis
The saddle band grouper Epinephelus lanceolatus is the largest bass fish in the world
In older sources (in fact, it is only two or three years apart), humpback perch is considered to be a separate genus cromileptes, and their biggest feature is that their bodies are very flattened and their backs are high, which is very different from the grouper genus. However, molecular systematics studies have suggested that the genus Humpback and the light-palatine perch are both within the genus Grouper, are descendants of groupers, and should be incorporated into the grouper genus. Molecular development trees show that the genus Humpback based on the genus Epinephelus fuscoguttatus (tiger spotter) and Epinephelus polyphekadion, which together form an evolutionary branch, a 2018 paper used as a molecular basis to merge the genus Humpback and the light-palatine seabass into the grouper genus. Therefore, although the hybridization of humpback perch and saddle band grouper appears to be transgenic, the difference in this genus is actually a residual problem of morphological classification, and humpback perch and saddle banded grouper are not actually cross-genus, but their distance within the grouper genus is not far away, so hybridization is also a very normal thing.
Brown spotted grouper Epinephelus fuscoguttatus
Clearwater grouper Epinephelus polyphekadion and a juvenile crescentfish Thalassoma lunare
Interspecific hybridization is a common channel for grouper breeding, and the currently bred grouper hybrids include cloud grouper (epinephelus moara× saddle band grouper Epinephelus lanceolatus), dragon tabby (saddle band grouper Epinephelus lanceolatus× brown spotted grouper Epinephelus fuscoguttatus) and green dragon spot (spotted grouper Epinephelus coioides × saddle band grouper Epinephelus lanceolatus), among them, dragon tabby is the most common one, it is also known as pearl barley, is already one of the most common groupers on the market.
The blue grouper Epinephelus awoara is another common grouper, but because of its small size, it is often only found in coastal markets. Figure: saltcorner.com