Aquaculture for all

Giant Fish Discovered in the Atlantic

US - Researchers have discovered a new species of fish, a grouper that grows to more than six feet and weighs almost 500 kg.

According to the Irish Sun, these Atlantic goliaths are not the same groupers that swim in Pacific waters, though they look identical.

'For more than a century, ichthyologists have thought that Pacific and Atlantic goliath grouper were the same species, and the argument was settled before the widespread use of genetic techniques.

'The genetic data were the key to our finding: two species, one on each side of the isthmus,' said Matthew Craig of the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, co-author of the study in which the discovery was announced.

Because the two populations of grouper are identical, they were both considered part of the same species: Epinephelus itajara.

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