Scamp Grouper

The scamp grouper has a body that is elongate, robust and compressed with its depth being the same at the origin of the dorsal fin as it is at the origin of the anal fin. The standard length is 3.0 to 3.4 times the body's depth. The preopercle is angular, with an obvious bony lobe at its serrated angle. The dorsal fin contains 11 spines and 16-18 soft rays while the anal fin contains 3 spines and 10-12 soft rays. The membranes between the dorsal fin spines are incised. The caudal fin is concave. Four phases of colour and pattern have been described. One has the head and body pale brown in background colour but the body is almost entirely covered in small dark red-brown spots, one on each scale, these frequently form clusters shaped like the paw-prints and these form saddle-like blotches along the back and elongate blotches on the flanks. These spots extend onto the dorsal and anal fins while the pectoral fin has a dark inner margin and a whitish outer margin. The caudal fin is dark with a pale margin. A second phase is pale brown, and its upper body has clusters of dark brown spots that look like cat's paws. The third phase has large adults which have a silvery grey head and front of the body with dark reticulations and the posterior two-thirds of the body are dark. This phase has a few white spots on the abdomen, at the base of the caudal fin and above the anal fin. …

The scamp grouper occurs in the western Atlantic Ocean from North Carolina south along the southern Atlantic coast of the United States into the Gulf of Mexico where it has been recorded as far south as Belize, but it is absent from much of the West Indies It is also found along the Caribbean coast of South America from Colombia to Tobago. Juveniles are sometimes recorded as far north as Massachusetts and a vagrant has been caught in the Azores.