Transgender Fish, The Pride Of A State

By Pascal Geraghty on January 21, 2016 in Other

Blue gropers are the Chaz Bonos of the sea. They’re born female – and rather plain females at that – and then turn into flamboyant, colourful, rotund males later in life. And the similarities don’t stop there. It’s not permitted to shoot either of them with a spear gun, but they’re fantastic fun on hook and line.

For Chaz, a gender change was a conscious and no doubt difficult decision kicking off a lengthy, complicated medical process. For blue gropers, however, changing gender is just a natural, ordinary part of life. The norm. No need for sleazy, rock star plastic surgeons to the stars, just pre-coded genes switching effortlessly on and off.

Admittedly, though, blue gropers have an unfair head start. They are hermaphrodites. The females generally change into males at around 50 centimetres in length, but the timing of this change can be influenced by environmental and social factors.

The darlings of divers, blue gropers love to parade their big booty and botoxy lips in front of as many underwater humans as possible. Interestingly, however, the term blue groper is deceiving. They are, in fact, not gropers at all; rather, they are wrasses, and they are not always blue. Juvenile and female blue gropers are brown to greenish-yellow, while it’s the adult males that possess the striking, bright blue colouring that gives these fish their name.

Eastern blue gropers (Achoerodus viridis) are ubiquitous around the rocky headlands and coastal reefs of the Eastern Suburbs, and are endemic to South Eastern Australian waters. Their gourmet diet consists of crabs, prawns and shellfish, but their signature dish is sea urchins, making them in some ways a surfer’s guardian angel, for without them urchin numbers would undoubtedly skyrocket. Achoerodus viridis is known to reach lengths in excess of a metre, weights well over 25 kilograms and is believed to be capable of living to at least 35 years of age.

Sadly, the population in New South Wales got seriously depleted in the swingin’ 60s due to heavy commercial and recreational fishing. Above all, their famously gentle, curious nature made them easy pickings for spearfishers. Consequently, a ban on spearfishing was imposed in 1969 while commercial sale was prohibited in 1980. Today the species can only legally be taken by recreational line fishing, although you still hear of the odd fool putting a spear through one.

We’re pretty proud of eastern blue gropers here in New South Wales. In 1998 they were proclaimed the state fish emblem. And why shouldn’t we be proud? After all, they’re living everyone’s fantasy of test-driving the sexual apparatus of both genders.