HOGFISH

     This fish belongs to the species of wrasses. Present in Florida, in the Bahamas, in the Caribbean, in the Gulf of Mexico and to Bermuda, it therefore bears different names because of its form or of its colors. If its English name of hogfish (or fish-pig) comes from what it uses a long snout to stir up the ground in search of its food, its French name of labre-captain given to him in the Antilles or quite simply of captain comes to him because his 3 very long spines at the top of its dorsal which make it resemble to a captain.

     Because of its very appreciated flesh, it was a victim of line overfishing as well as of underwater speargun because it is relatively not frightened by the divers; he is thus regarded as a species in danger (see that link), and as such he is protected.

     Hogfish forage during the day, feeding primarily on gastropods and bivalve molluscs, but also on crabs, sea urchins, and barnacles. It can use its long snout and protractible mouth to root in the sand for its favoured prey.

     During years, I tried without success to see enough of the hogfish so that I could film it and it is only in 2017 (May and August), in 2018 and in 2019 (June, July and August) that I manage to do it both at its juvenile stage and adult stage: thus they are the 5 videos below.
Juvenile hogfish
The brown marblings of the juvenile hogfish are very noticable on this video (August 2017 Tarpon Springs in Florida) and the ends of its fins (dorsal and caudal) are already quite visible.
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Adult hogfish (1)
At its adult stage, the extremities of its fins (dorsal and caudal) are much more visible than at its juvenile stage as well as its black spot between its dorsal and its caudal (May 2017 Anna Maria Island in East Florida).
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Adult hogfish (2)
The hogfish is an hermaphrodite going from female as a juvenile up to turning into a male, as you can see one in this video, when he is around 3-year old (June 2018 Tarpon Springs in Florida).
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Adult Hogfish (3)
Once again on June 5, 2019 on a reef next to Anna Maria Island in Florida, I still had the chance to film a hogfish at a young adult stage. On this video, the black dot at the bottom of its dorsal and in front of its caudal is here very visible as well as its frontal brown bar.
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Kiss of death or love ?
In August 2018, I was lucky enough to film a sort of underwater 'dance' between 2 hogfish and, considering how it went, I titled this video “Kiss of death or love ?”. Why this title? When you know that these fishes are protogynous hermaphrodites, i.e. they change sex at various stages of their life, functioning initially sexually as females, then transforming themselves into males generally towards the age of 3 when they reach a length of approximately 14 inches, I think that we are perhaps in the presence of two males because they display characteristics of males, deep dark band from their snout to the first backbone fin and a side black mark behind the pectoral fins. But since we know that the females and the juveniles generally exhibit a pale color gray with a paler lower part without any distinctive characteristic, it could be that I have witnessed a male and a female (see the whitest fish) enjoying themselves with a preliminary ballet before mating. Is it that or a fight between 2 males in order to control a group of females since it is also known that the social groups of hogfish are organized in harems where a male mate and protect a group of females on its territory ? Hence my title for this video. However, since it is considered that mating in Florida waters primarily takes place during the months of February and March, I lean for a combat between a new male trying to take over the harem of an old male.
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To know more ...
You may click on the following links :
 link 1 in French or
 link 2 in English or
 link 3 as well.