|
Morphological characteristics
|
|
“The mero-canapu have thicker scales, spurs, all thicker. It has the eye niggling, which is more darker brown then whiting and a little yellowish beneath the tip.”
|
Individuals of this species can be distinguished by morphological characters as small eye, wide mouth and coloration of the adult green with dark spots and bright [5, 70].
|
|
“Big fish, the scales black with yellow and white flesh, round head”
|
|
Habitat
|
|
“He lives there, walks in the depth wall, is not a fish to walk so far on deep waters do not. He lives in the place that has a hole he is there, into those places of stone, is a bottom fish.”
|
Great copolymers are probably sedentary … they display little movement between reefs [14].
|
|
“On the stone edge, 50 m depth to around here. It’s fish that lives in rock, very dens, localized at the bottom near the dens.”
|
In his adulthood, is usually found in shallow waters of the continental shelf (<50 m) associated with various types of substrate, such as reefs, rock formations, shipwrecks and other similar structures [14, 15].
|
|
“Experience in the rocks from outside and near the beach. In the stone which dens, is a bottom fish. The smaller (2–3 kg) we caught in the river back here (Almada River), 30 kg onwards is out there with 35 to 60 m deep.”
|
|
“Find it in shallow and deep, but is created in the shallows”
|
The mangroves of the Florida, youth individuals gather in places with high structural complexity and unconsolidated funds [12].
|
|
Diet
|
|
“ Eat all because it is a larger predator, eats octopus and various fish: tuna, small snappers and parrotfish, up when the animals already greater.”
|
The more important part of their diet is crustaceans, preferably lobster and crab, although fish and turtles were also found in their stomachs [2].
|
|
“The juvenil eats the same thing only smaller fish that takes”
|
Juveniles eat shrimp, crab and catfish [14].
|
|
“The small eat shrimp.”
| |
|
Reproduction
|
|
“Come to shallow to spawn and then back to the depth”
| |
|
“The spawn is usually on the half moon …”
|
In Florida the goliath grouper breeding season is occurs from August to September, in time of full moon [7].
|
|
“In Itacare is spawning nest of them, once the boats took 5–6 a day. I even took three a day and three in another. In April and May we took there more than a hundred fish.”
|
In Belize and Puerto Rico have been recorded from July to August on the wreck to 30-45 m depth [2].
|
|
Conservation
|
|
“ The mero came to Ilheus reef, in a place near the river where the young is so much more guarded and more food.”
|
The E. itajara is one of the most endangered fish in the tropical Atlantic [20].
|
|
“ Without spearfishing, it used to live longer, and it was just bigger, while today it reaches 70 or 80 kilograms and is shipped in large quantities.”
|
The main threats to E. itajara are anthropogenic, such as overfishing and habitat degradation [21].
|
|
“Who is beaten gets to learn, is not it! the fish going harpoon and receiving fish hook, is decreasing production. Many arts, include gillnet, also becomes more difficult to fishing.”
|
In Brazilian waters, the ban has been implemented for 5 years, during which time studies will address future management options [22].
|
|
“In handle bottom- line is rare, in shrimp trawl caught from time to time, and the diver kills everything.”
|
At aggregation sites off Florida numbers of fish again following the moratorium capture is increasing [2].
|
|
“You can be the net both to trawls and lobster, if started a few years back here. The fishnet destroys the stone from the bottom where small fish hide, and the great escape because it has little to eat.”
| |
|
“It’s not ending, and the population must have increased with the prohibition. That is the logic, isn’t it!”
| |
