Big schools of Bastard Grunt or Roncadores
Jump from the boat, dive into the blue and see the large groups of silver-yellow fish, sometimes a couple of 1.000 of them, slowly moving. You cannot deny, the numbers are their strength, definitely with groups of barracuda hanging above.
The bastard grunt, also known as Dogfish or Sweetlips but here in the Canaries better known as Roncadores, are a given when diving in the south. Almost on every site they can be spotted, varying from a few hundred to over 1.000 species.
How to recognize a Bastard Grunt?
The individual bastard grunt is a silver coloured fish with explicit yellow fins and can get to about 50cm. These nocturnal hunters live in large schools during daytime in order to seek protection from their predators.
You will typically find them in the neighbourhood of reefs, rocks and wrecks where they can easily hunt during the night. They are present to depths of about 100m.
Scuba Diving
The bastard grunt is completely harmless to divers and therefor can be approached quite closely. When observing a large group of grunts best is to swim above them and drop down in the pack. They will form a bubble around you. Do not swim towards them as the pack will split.
Some Science
| Kingdom | Animalia |
| Phylum | Chordata |
| Class | Osteichthyes |
| Order | Perciformes |
| Family | Haemulidae |
| Genus | Pomadasys |
| Species | Pomadasys incisus |
More Information
We get many questions about what there is to see when you go diving in the south of Gran Canaria. We want to respond to this by creating a number of articles where each highlights a specific species we regularly encounter when diving in the Atlantic. The complete series gives you a good idea of what to find when scuba diving in the blue waters of the south of Gran Canaria. Let’s be clear we are not marine biologists; just a dive centre trying to provide valuable information to our customers.
For the full details of the species we would like to refer to Marine Species. Here you’ll find more detail than we go into.
