Flag cabrilla in Los Cabos

How to recognize it

Robust, compressed body with a rounded tail. Head and body are olive green to reddish brown with scattered, irregular white spots and blotches, and red-brown blotches on the head and front of the body. Look for a black saddle on top of the tail base, and brick-red margins on the dorsal and anal fins, on the upper and lower edges of the tail and on the outer half of the pectoral fin. Each dorsal spine has a bright white tip, a reddish-brown stripe runs from the snout through the eye onto the cheek, and the inside of the mouth is red. Juveniles have black spots on top of the head.

Biology

The flag cabrilla lives only in the eastern Pacific, from southern California and the Gulf of California to Peru, including the Galápagos, Cocos, Malpelo and Revillagigedo islands. It is a resident of rocky and coral reefs from about 1 to 50 m deep and is most abundant in shallow water. Reef Life Survey divers find it at about 65% of the reef sites they survey within its range.

It is a solitary predator that seems to feed on small fish by day and on crustaceans after dark. Spawning takes place in late summer. It grows to about 60 cm.

How it's caught in Los Cabos

The flag cabrilla lives on shallow rocky reefs around Los Cabos and is a common sight for snorkelers and divers. Anglers catch it on inshore trips while fishing close to the rocks, often along with other cabrillas and small reef fish.

Small live bait, strips of cut bait or small jigs fished right on the bottom near rocks will draw strikes. Like other groupers it heads straight for a hole once hooked, so lift it away from the bottom quickly. Many are small enough that releasing them is the best choice. Sport fishing is not allowed inside Cabo Pulmo National Park.

On the table

Eaten locally; FishBase lists it as a minor commercial fish and a game fish, and as harmless (no ciguatera reports).

Rules, records & conservation

Don't confuse it with

The spotted cabrilla (Epinephelus analogus) is tan to gray and covered in many small red-brown spots, with four broad, faint dark bars, and it grows much larger (to 114 cm). The leopard grouper (Mycteroperca rosacea) is densely covered in small brown spots, has a straight-edged tail and sometimes comes in an all-gold form. The gulf grouper (Mycteroperca jordani) is a far bigger, gray-brown fish with dark blotches. The flag cabrilla is the one with white spots and blotches on olive, brick-red fin edges and a black saddle on the tail base.

Questions

By Max VargasTop Anglers, Cabo San Lucas · international judge at big game fishing world championships · reviewed October 2026

Sources

• Smithsonian Shorefishes of the Eastern Pacific: flag cabrilla
• FishBase: Epinephelus labriformis
• FishBase: Epinephelus labriformis in Mexico
• Reef Life Survey: Epinephelus labriformis
• IGFA world records: starry grouper
• ETYFish Project: Epinephelidae etymology
• Smithsonian Shorefishes of the Eastern Pacific: spotted cabrilla
• Smithsonian Shorefishes of the Eastern Pacific: leopard grouper
• Smithsonian Shorefishes of the Eastern Pacific: gulf grouper
• NOM-017-PESC-1994, 2013 amendment (DOF)
• NOM-059-SEMARNAT-2010, 2019 annex (DOF)
• Aburto-Oropeza et al. 2011, Cabo Pulmo recovery (PLOS ONE)

Top illustration: Top Anglers. Photos: iNaturalist contributors, credited on each photo.