How to Identify Blue Striped Grunt Fish

Video Transcript

"The fish that we are going to identify now is the Blue Striped Grunt. Grunts are some of the most common schooling fish that divers and snorkelers will encounter over reefs and on wrecks throughout the Bahamas, Florida and the Caribbean. The Blue Striped Grunt is one of the species most commonly seen and it is easily identified. What makes it distinctive aren't the blue stripes over yellow because the blue stripes can be a bluish-white in some cases, which makes it look like many other grunts. What distinguishes the Blue Striped Grunt is it's dark tail and rear dorsal fin. These fins also have a very light, almost clear edge to them. As with most of the other grunt species, Blue Striped Grunts are usually eight to fourteen inches long and generally stay in shallower reef areas, less than fifty feet deep. The schools can be as small as ten fish, to as large as hundreds of fish. Although more wary than other grunt species, a diver moving slowly can penetrate the school without disrupting it. But if the school feels threatened, they will flow away from the intruder. That's the Blue Striped Grunt."