I have a crush on a fish.
Jupiter, a goliath grouper, lingers near the front of his tank in the Florida Aquarium. He is a big guy, not fully grown (Goliath grouper can reach 800 pounds), but bigger than most of the kids who smudge the glass in admiration. Gender is a question mark; the young docent on my last trip says “she.” I guess. Epinephelus itajaraare gonochoristic, meaning the female-born will sometimes transition to male.
Their eyes get me. Like glazed-over blueberries, set in mottled golf balls, Jupiter’s eyes half-protrude from their camo gray, suede-like head. Grouper are territorial, and a fanning pelvic (front) fin keeps this overstuffed body in one place, so Jupiter can take in what passes by. The flitting gaze holds a definite, charismatic self-regard.
Every time I visit the Florida Aquarium, and I go quite a bit, I make it a point to catch some light off my wrist watch or wedding ring, in the hopes that Jupiter remembers me. I know I should not bother a specimen in the aquarium, but I want that connection.
Goliath grouper, in the wild, lead remarkable lives. The name refers to aggregate or communal breeding. Late every summer, Epinephelus itajara flock from their usual underwater perch to congregating points, somewhere in the Gulf or off the Atlantic Coast. Hundreds of fish “group” together, simultaneously releasing eggs and sperm. That is why we call them “grouper.” They are, to my knowledge, the only species in nature named for how they fuck.
What does Jupiter think or feel, when spawning season comes?
Looking for answers, I seek out my marine science colleague Chris Stallings. Chris and I are former St. Pete neighbors, it dawned on us later that we had freecycled my son’s Ikea platform bed to his kids a few years back, and though we have both worked at USF for decades, we had never met on campus.
I find Stallings mazed away in the College of Marine Science bunkers. We come from different corners of the academic world. A spear gun sits upright in the corner of his office, next to a bookshelf stacked with chemistry and bio texts. I’m dressed for teaching, wearing my first-day-of-class sportscoat and Cole-Haan loafers. Chris, tussled hair and half-shaven beard, comes to work in a Rays pullover and flip-flops; he looks like he could have spent the night on the Skyway Pier. Still, we get on. The best scientists (and I’ve collaborated with good ones over the years) often think like poets. Earlier that morning, I had introduced my students to “Moby Dick,” Herman Melville’s giant and baffling book: “For as the secrets in the currents in the seas have never yet been divulged….”
Stallings possesses that same habit of mind—the bemused skepticism of someone who has spent a lifetime peering into murky water, netting provisional conclusions. In conversation, he leaps around a lot; when there’s a gap in his sources, he tentacles freely into analogy. I ask about Epinephelus itajara and he answers with a comparison species. There’s conjecture, followed by a dismissive laugh, a tangent, then a chart or graph. “I’ll send you the link,” he says, pausing to email me an article with some clues to a question he may never figure out. The data matters.
Goliath grouper were nearly harvested to extinction by the 1980s. Now protected, a source of resentment, their numbers have bounced back, though nowhere near where they should be. Locals claim they compete with game fish. That’s not really true, however. Stallings and his colleagues have reached down the gullet of a thousand Epinephelus itajara, raking out the contents of their communal gut, coming to a definitive conclusion. Goliath grouper are lazy feeders, or “opportunistic predators,” so yes they will nab the exhausted snapper off an angler’s line, but mostly they eat crustaceans.
I ask about migration. Around August or September, does Jupiter the grouper feel an itch to leave? What compels this species to migrate? The signal may come from inside, Stallings concedes—perhaps some enzyme? Or do these fish follow atmospheric triggers? Perhaps warming water temperature, or longer days combined with a cycle of the moon?
It’s tempting, but dangerous, to speculate on the inner life of a fish.
Do they change sex, I want to know. The short answer is yes, sort of. Some websites claim them as “hermaphroditic,” although that term is too broad; for a percentage of females, exact number still unknown, gonads pop in after maturation. Spawned in open water, the fry find their way to protective mangrove fringes. As adults they habituate reef-like structures, usually deeper water, like the Skyway. The best explanation for the individual, occasional transition is territorial. When a bull male disappears or dies, “androgen producing cells in ovarian tissue,” Stallings explains, “can initiate testicular development.”
Ray Davies, back in the day with The Kinks, was a lot less technical:
“It’s a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world.” These mysteries keep scientists going. Grouper teach, apparently. A study of tagged Nassau Grouper suggests that, in traveling to spawning grounds, the larger fish show their young where to go. Beacons positioned along the Nassau Groupers’ route reveal a pattern of schooling: Big fish, big fish, medium, medium, smaller.
We have so much to love in this species. Goliath grouper gather for summertime orgies. Adult females flip gender, as needed. The schools find a way, as community, to survive. I know, I know—I’ve drifted pretty far from Jupiter in the Florida Aquarium. But I told you, this was a crush.
And we humans can get pretty small-minded, mean-spirited even, in defining “normal.” In Florida, our politics tread harshly on things natural or in-between. Tallahassee declares it a “criminal trespass” against anyone not using a bathroom aligning with sex at birth. We build condos and sea walls where there should be mangroves. The non-binary students in my classes must go to another building to pee. As of 2024, the DMV reversed policy that would allow trans people to update the gender on their drivers license. Good luck to the transitioned Epinephelus itajara, trying to do the same.
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This article appears in Feb. 05 – 11, 2026.