Flowery rockcod
Epinephelus fuscoguttatus
Illustration: Bloom by Day
A heavy brown cod crowded with small dark spots, with rows of darker blotches down the side and a small black saddle on the tail base. It sits half under a plate or in a cave mouth and relies on being hard to see rather than on moving.
how to recognise it
- small close-set brown spots all over a pale yellowish-brown body
- five vertical series of irregular dark brown blotches
- a small black saddle on top of the tail base
- large and heavy-bodied — to over a metre
don’t confuse with
- Camouflage grouper — the camouflage grouper is smaller, its dark blotches form oblique bands on a whitish upper body, and its tail-base saddle is a dark smudge rather than a clean black patch
- Goldspotted rockcod — the goldspotted rockcod has orange-brown to reddish spots and about five angled H-shaped bars, not rows of blotches
- Blackspotted rockcod — the blackspotted rockcod is greyer with dark brown spots and pale blotches, and has no tail-base saddle
- Maori rockcod — the Maori rockcod carries wavy pale lines rather than spots
- Potato rockcod — the potato rockcod has a few LARGE widely-spaced blotches and dark streaks radiating from the eye, not crowded small spots
Field marks read from Fishes of Australia, 2026-10-15. Our wording, their facts. Max size 120 cm TL.
facts
- habitat
- reef
- size
- ~70 cm, to 120 cm
Max size from Fishes of Australia (120 cm TL); the typical size is Bluebird’s, not from a cited source
- records
- 170 at 19 spot(s), none of
them in this region
Recorded at Osprey Reef (Coral Sea), Lizard Island — Cod Wall, Low Isles (Port Douglas), Port Douglas (Outer GBR), Green Island (Cairns), Fitzroy Island (Cairns), Magnetic Island — Geoffrey Bay, SS Yongala Wreck, Bait Reef (Whitsundays), Hayman Island — Blue Pearl Bay, Hook Island — Manta Ray Bay, Border Island (Whitsundays — East), Tongue Bay (Whitsunday — North), North Horn (Coral Sea), Cairns Reef (Great Barrier), Heron Island (GBR), Erskine Island, Lady Musgrave Island, Lady Elliot Island (GBR). A count of occurrence records, not abundance. Records are where someone looked.
when it has been recorded
JFMAMJJASOND
A gap means no record in the sample, not absence.
the rule
QLD — Min: 50cm Max: 70cm · Combined limit: 5 in total of all cod and grouper species
source
· verified 2026-10-10
no NSW rule listed — check before you dive
no closed season recorded for this species — that is not the same as open; check the official page
Rules checked 2026-10-13 against qld.gov.au
Rules change. Check before you dive.
Occurrence data: Atlas of Living Australia (ala.org.au), CC-BY 4.0.
Diver transect counts: Reef Life Survey (reeflifesurvey.com), CC-BY 4.0, supplied via ALA.
Target and protected species: Queensland tidal-water size and possession limits (qld.gov.au) and NSW saltwater bag and size limits plus threatened species lists (dpird.nsw.gov.au).
Habitat and size: Bluebird, approximate, from general knowledge. Not cited. FishBase is CC BY-NC and this app is commercial, so it is not used.
Description written for Bloom. RECORDS ARE WHERE SOMEONE LOOKED, NOT WHERE THE FISH ARE. A record count is a count of records near here and nothing else -- it is not abundance, and a species with few records is not rare. Absence of records is not absence of fish.
Diver transect counts: Reef Life Survey (reeflifesurvey.com), CC-BY 4.0, supplied via ALA.
Target and protected species: Queensland tidal-water size and possession limits (qld.gov.au) and NSW saltwater bag and size limits plus threatened species lists (dpird.nsw.gov.au).
Habitat and size: Bluebird, approximate, from general knowledge. Not cited. FishBase is CC BY-NC and this app is commercial, so it is not used.
Description written for Bloom. RECORDS ARE WHERE SOMEONE LOOKED, NOT WHERE THE FISH ARE. A record count is a count of records near here and nothing else -- it is not abundance, and a species with few records is not rare. Absence of records is not absence of fish.