Dusky grouper

A heavy, deep-bodied fish with a broad head, thick rubbery lips and a huge downturned mouth. The body is brown to grey-green, dusted with pale cream blotches that come and go as the fish changes mood, and the rounded tail and soft fins usually carry a thin pale edge. The pectoral fins are large and fan-shaped, and the fish sculls with them rather than swimming hard. Divers in Malta most often meet animals of 40 to 80 cm, though a well-fed adult on an unfished ledge can reach well over a metre.

Groupers are solitary and territorial. Each one holds a home hole under a boulder, a crack in a drop-off or a cave mouth, and the same individual is often found in the same spot dive after dive. It will usually hold its ground while you drift closer, turn side-on to show its bulk, then slide back into the hole and peer out at you. Around Malta, Gozo and Comino they turn up on almost any healthy rocky site with big boulders and undercuts, from about 5 m down to the limits of recreational depth.

They are far scarcer here than in well-protected Mediterranean reserves, because Maltese groupers have been targeted by spearfishers and hook-and-line fishers for generations. Sites with a no-take culture, such as the Ċirkewwa area, tend to hold the boldest and largest fish, and a big ċerna that lets you approach is a sign of a reef that has been left alone.