Key West Grunts

If you're planning a Key West snorkeling adventure, you are almost certainly going to spot the French Grunt and the Blue-striped Grunt. These fish are plentiful off the southern coast of Florida in its warm, tropical waters. Grunts live near reefs and in seagrass beds and mangroves. This is where they find their favorite meals of shrimp, clams and smaller fish.

These are beautiful, colorful fish having yellow bodies with bright blue stripes. There are a couple of ways to tell the two fish apart. The brilliant blue stripes run horizontally and appear to be outlined in a darker blue on the Blue-striped Grunt. In the French Grunt, the striping is not outlined and runs in more of a diagonal direction. The Blue-stripe also has a distinctive dark brown dorsal fin and tail. These fish don't stay still for very long, so you have to be quick in order to spot the differences between the two of them! The grunts average size is 18andrdquo;. Perhaps the most intriguing characteristic of this fish is its ability to andlsquo;grunt'. The sound is much like the grunting of a pig, but is actually the fish grinding its back teeth together. The grunting sound is then amplified by the fish's air bladder.