Pigfish

The pigfish gets its name from the grunting noise it makes by grinding its throat teeth together, a sound divers sometimes hear before they see the fish. It can weigh up to 900 g.

Also known as: hogfish, sailor's choice, redmouth grunt

Other grunts on the same reefs can look similar, but this species' diagonal orange-brown stripes, made up of blue-and-bronze scales, are a useful pointer.

It has an oval, flattened body and a small, thin-lipped mouth that does not reach the eye. The back is pale bluish-grey and the belly silvery. Every scale has a blue centre and a bronze edge, lining up into diagonal orange-brown stripes along the back and flanks, which turn horizontal below the lateral line, the faint sensory line running along its side. The fins are yellowish-bronze with dusky edges.

It lives in bays, estuaries, and coastal waters over sand, mud, or hard bottoms such as reefs and jetties, at depths from about 10 m down. Its range covers the western Atlantic coast of the United States, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean.

Pigfish shelter by day and come out at night to hunt, feeding mainly on bottom-living invertebrates. Smaller fish eat tiny drifting crustaceans, while larger ones take worms, crabs, molluscs, and small fish. They migrate offshore into deeper, warmer water for winter and move back inshore in spring.

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  African Striped Grunt

  Parapristipoma octolineatum

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  Black Margate

  Anisotremus surinamensis

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  Blubberlip

  Plectorhinchus gibbosus

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  Bluestriped Grunt

  Haemulon sciurus

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  Caesar Grunt

  Haemulon carbonarium

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  French grunt

  Haemulon flavolineatum