juveniles feed on shrimps. These fishes are protogynous hermaphrodites they all start life as female to male becoming males in their middle age. Sex change takes place at 4 or 5 years old and at lengths of . The change in sex occurs straight after the spawning period in August and September. The males vigorously guard a harem which have an average of one male to six female. When spawning, a female will releases between 260 and 600 eggs and the male then releases his milt to fertilise them. They can live for up to 13 years. It is parasitized by Pseudorhabdosynochus meganmarieae. Taxonomy The graysby was first formally described in 1802 as Sparus cruentatus by the French naturalist Bernard Germain de Lacépède (1756-1825) with the type locality given as the Antilles and Bahamas. Utilisation The graysby is a quarry species for both commercial fisheries and for anglers. It makes up 11% of the commercial reef-fish catch in Curacao and it was taken by line, trap and spear fisheries in Honduras in the past but constitutes only a small part of the total reef-fish catch in Honduras. It is common around Cuba where it is not an important quarry species for fisheries. In the United States the fisheries for this species fall under the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council and both commercial and recreational fisheries have a close season which runs from 1 January to 30 April. References External links Graysby Fauna of the Southeastern United States Fish of the Caribbean Fish of Cuba Fish of the Dominican Republic Fish described in 1802