Epinephelus drummondhayi is a species of fish

Fish

Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

 in the Serranidae

Serranidae

Serranidae is a large family of fishes, belonging to the order Perciformes. The family contains about 450 species of serranids in 64 genera, including the sea basses and the groupers...

 family. It is commonly called the calico grouper, kitty mitchell, speckled hind, or strawberry grouper. It is found in Bermuda

Bermuda

Bermuda is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. Located off the east coast of the United States, its nearest landmass is Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. It is about south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and northeast of Miami, Florida...

 and the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. Its natural habitat

Habitat

* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...

s are open sea

Sea

A sea generally refers to a large body of salt water, but the term is used in other contexts as well. Most commonly, it means a large expanse of saline water connected with an ocean, and is commonly used as a synonym for ocean...

s, shallow seas, subtidal aquatic beds, and coral reef

Coral reef

Coral reefs are underwater structures made from calcium carbonate secreted by corals. Coral reefs are colonies of tiny living animals found in marine waters that contain few nutrients. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, which in turn consist of polyps that cluster in groups. The polyps...

s. It is threatened by habitat loss.

The speckled hind is a U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service Species of Concern. Species of Concern are those species about which the U.S. Government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Marine Fisheries Service, has some concerns regarding status and threats, but for which insufficient information is available to indicate a need to list the species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Species Description

Speckled hind derive their name from the multitude of tiny white spots that cover their reddish-brown head, body and fins. Juvenile specimens tend to have yellow body color with white spots (Ross 1988). Speckled hinds are deep-water groupers: adults inhabit offshore rocky bottoms in depths of 80 to 1300 feet (25 to 400 m) but are most common between 200 and 400 feet (60 and 120 m) in many areas of the Western Atlantic.

Ecology

There is a paucity of data for this species: the stock structure is not characterized, population size is unknown and much of their life history has not been thoroughly investigated.

Conservation

Speckled hind are caught as bycatch from the deepwater snapper/grouper fisheries off the coast of North Carolina through Texas and directly in recreational fisheries by hook and line mostly (SAFMC 2005).

Conservation Designations

IUCNhttp://www.iucnredlist.org/: Critically Endangered

American Fisheries Society: Endangered

Source

• Ng Wai Chuen & Huntsman, G. 2005. Epinephelus drummondhayi. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Downloaded on 4 August 2007.

• U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service Species of Concern program http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/species/concern