Cephalopholis fulva, the coney or the butterfish, is a species of marine ray-finned fish, a grouper from the subfamily Epinephelinae which is in the family Serranidae which also includes the anthias and sea basses. It is found in the western Atlantic. It is associated with reefs and is a quarry species for commercial and recreational fisheries. It can be found in the aquarium trade.
Description
Cephalopholis fulva has an oblong-shaped, robust body with a snout that is longer than the diameter of the eye. It has large and round eyes, sitting above a pointed snout. The dorsal profile is flat to convex between the eyes and the posterior end of the upper mandible is exposed when the mouth is closed forming a bony knob. The closed mouth reaches beyond the rear margin of the eye. The majority of the teeth are movable. It has a rounded preopercle which is finely serrated but does not have any spines or notches. There are 46-54 scales in the lateral line. The dorsal fin has 9 spines and 14-16 soft rays while the anal fin has 3 spines and 9 soft rays. There are deep notches between the spines in the dorsal fin. The caudal fin is convex with angles at the corners. The maximum recorded total length recorded is .
There are three colour phases in this species: a deep water red phase, a shallow water bicoloured or orange-brown phase and a xanthic or yellow phase which can be found in shallow to deep water. The bicoloured phase is the normal red or brownish orange above a line which runs from the tip of the snout to the rear rays of the dorsal fin and pale below this. In the red and bicoloured morphs, there is a patterning of small blue spots with dark margins which covers the head and body. In the yellow morph these spots are restricted to the head and the anterior part of the body and there are less of them. There are two small black spots on top of caudal peduncle and another two at tip of lower jaw which are present in all three colour morphs. The bicoloured pattern shown by the shallow-water morph seems to be an excitement pattern, and it the fish can switch this pattern on and off in a few seconds. At night they generally adopt a pale colouration with irregular vertical bars and a dark forked line between the eyes. When breeding the male has a horizontal dark brown band which runs from the lower end of base of the pectoral fin to the tip of the caudal fin, a black margin to the soft-rayed part of the dorsal fin, a dark stripe through eye and a white spot on the body near the centre of the base of the dorsal fin. The juveniles are either bicoloured or uniformly gold and have a white spot on the middle of the back and have four black spots on the lower lip and two white spots on upper base of the caudal fin.
Distribution
Cephalopholis fulva occurs in the western Atlantic Ocean from South Carolina and Bermuda to the Bahamas and into the Gulf of Mexico where it is found in Florida from the Florida Keys as far north as Cedar Key, Florida and the Flower Garden Banks. In the west of the Gulf of Mexico it is found from Tuxpan in Mexico south along the coast of the northern Yucatan Peninsula and off northwestern Cuba. It also occurs throughout the Caribbean Sea and along the northern coast of South America, with a gap in the region of the Amazon Delta, to southern Brazil, It is also found around the Fernando de Noronha Archipelago, St. Paul's Rocks and Trindade Island.