Potato rockcod
Epinephelus tukula
Illustration: Bloom by Day
PROTECTED — look, don't shoot
A huge pale cod blotched with a few large dark potatoes, with dark streaks running back from the eye. Famously curious: at the Cod Hole they come to meet divers, and a two-metre fish arriving at eye level is a lot of fish.
how to recognise it
- large dark widely-spaced blotches — potatoes — on a pale brownish-grey body
- dark streaks radiating from the eye
- small dark spots on the fins
- very large and robust, to two metres
don’t confuse with
- Queensland groper — the Queensland groper is bigger again and mottled dark grey-brown all over as an adult, without separate round blotches
- Flowery rockcod — the flowery rockcod's markings are small close-set spots with rows of blotches, not a few big widely-spaced ones
Field marks read from Fishes of Australia, 2026-10-15. Our wording, their facts. Max size 200 cm TL.
facts
- habitat
- reef
- size
- ~120 cm, to 200 cm
Max size from Fishes of Australia (200 cm TL); the typical size is Bluebird’s, not from a cited source
- records
- 143 at 18 spot(s), none of
them in this region
Recorded at Osprey Reef (Coral Sea), Lizard Island — Cod Wall, Bougainville Reef (Coral Sea), Fitzroy Island (Cairns), Magnetic Island — Geoffrey Bay, SS Yongala Wreck, Hayman Island — Blue Pearl Bay, Hook Island — Manta Ray Bay, Border Island (Whitsundays — East), Tongue Bay (Whitsunday — North), North Horn (Coral Sea), Lady Elliot Island (GBR), Wolf Rock (Rainbow Beach), Dampier Archipelago (WA), Muiron Islands (Exmouth WA), Exmouth (Navy Pier WA), Ningaloo Reef (WA), Coral Bay (WA). 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 — No take
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.