THE FISHES OF PORTO RICO. 
15.5 
The red grouper is very tenacious of life, and will live several hours after being taken from the 
water, even though exposed to considerable heat. This is doubtless one reason why the Key West 
fishing fleet has preferred groupers for transportation to Cuba, since they are obliged to go a long way 
to market and through warm water, and the grouper bears the crowding and chafing in the wells of 
the smacks better than other species. 
On the Florida coast this fish is known as the red grouper, or grouper, while in Cuba and Porto 
Rico it, together with one or two other groupers, is called cherna, cherna de vivera, or jaboneillo. 
Sen-anus murio Cuvier & Valenciennes, Hist. Nat. Poiss.,11,285, 1828, New York and Santo Domingo. 
Serranus erythrogastcr De Kay, New York Fauna: Fishes, 21, pi. 19, 1812, Florida. 
Sen-aims remotus Poey, Memorias, II, 140, 1800, Havana. 
Epinephelvs moria, Poey, Fauna Puerto-Riquena, 319, 1881: Stall 1, 1. c., 70 and 162, 1888; Jordan & livermunu, ].<•., 1160, 1896. 
Genus 69. ALPHESTES Bloch & Schneider. 
The genus Alphestes contains two species of small fishes which differ from Epineplielus proper in 
the presence of a strong an trorse spine pn lower limb of preopercle. Frontal bones with an anterior 
excavation for reception of posterior processes of premaxillaries, a process or knob on each side of skull 
behind interorbital area; supraoccipital and parietal crests produced on frontals, but not extending to. 
between orbits. Dorsal rays xi, 17 to 20; A. in, 9. Only one of the two species known in Porto Rico. 
111. Alphestes chloropterus (Cuvier & Valenciennes). “Cherna”; Guasela. 
Head 2.6; depth 2.7; eye 4.6; snout 6; maxillary 2.4; mandible 2; interorbital 6.8; D. xi, 18; A. 
in, 9; pectoral 1.7; ventral 2; caudal 1.6; scales 12-75 to 85-32. 
Body ovate and compressed, caudal peduncle short; head small and pointed, anterior profile 
depressed in occipital region ; eye large, its diameter greater than length of short snout; mouth oblique, 
maxillary reaching posterior border of orbit or beyond; teeth conical and sharp, some of them 
depressible, in patches on front of jaws, in more than one row on sides; 2 pairs of weak canines on 
front of upper jaw; lower jaw slightly projecting; preopercle strongly convex, angle rounded, and 
with a strong, rather flat spine, pointing downward and curved slightly forward; above this are fine 
serrations along entire upper limb, decreasing in size upward; opercle with 3 flat spines, middle one 
strongest, upper and lower nearly concealed by scales; scales covering head and body, reduced in 
size at nape, occiput, and everywhere on head save operc.les, where they are rather larger than on 
body; scales all cycloid save a distinctly ctenoid patch under or above pectoral; gillrakers short, about 
15 below angle; dorsal fin continuous, with a shallow notch, spines strong and pungent, fourth and 
fifth highest, 2.5 in head; soft dorsal as high as spinous, about the fourteenth ray longest, 2.25 in head, 
fin pointed posteriorly, rounded in young; anal high, second spine strongest and about equal to third, 
2.7 in head; caudal rounded; pectoral and ventral subequal, not reaching vent; in a small individual 
(4 inches) the pectoral reaches past ventral, which just reaches vent. 
