Do you have a photograph of a fish you can’t identify? If so, we’re up for the challenge, and would welcome the opportunity to share your photo and its ID with an international audience of enthusiasts. (Whether published or not, we will personally respond to every inquiry.) Email your jpgs, as large/hi-res as possible, to: fishfacts@sportfishingmag.com.
While fishing from the shore at St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, Dom Porcelli caught two sunfish-shaped fish that he identified as hamlets, though he wasn’t certain, and hoped Fish Facts could confirm.
Dom: You have it right. Both of these are hamlets, sea bass that are closely related to groupers, found in Florida, the Caribbean and beyond in the Western Atlantic. Typical of groupers, hamlets are aggressive predators, so anglers catch the small fish on baited hooks or small lures in shallow coral waters (to at least 150 feet).
Some experts believe there is one species with many different color shades. But other experts cite 13 different species, which means the darker fish Dom caught is a black hamlet (Hypoplectrus negre) and the lighter one a butter hamlet (H. unicolor). The black saddle ahead of its tail makes I.D. of butter hamlet easy.
