Please add Dog Snapper, Lutjanus jocu

Hi BradleyR, 

The reason I researched these common snappers is because I knew something was wrong with the Roughfish Dogs - they all looked different.  More selfishly, I wanted to make sure I had a chance of recognizing a Dog before I just chucked it back thinking it was something else.  I've never seen a Dog Snapper in the flesh and am not sure how much variation in color there can be.

All that said, I'm leaning toward Dog:

1) Yes, the scales above the lateral line seem to be angling upward (except for the first few dorsally)

2) Maybe it has a white triangle under the eye.  This would have been best determined by inspecting the fish in hand.

3) The most convincing thing pointing toward Dog is that the pectoral fin appears to be long (would reach the anus).

Detractors: 1)  It's color is very much like so many of the Mangroves.

                   2) It's canine teeth don't look that prominent (i.e. would they stick out if the mouth was closed?)

Boy, I caught a bunch of new fish this year that I almost couldn't ID because I didn't look at the right characters. This makes me determined to be extra anal in future about taking lots of photos of any new fish from lots of different angles, including closeups of all fins.  Of course, if it's something really challenging like a Cyprinid, I probably would have to keep (kill) the fish to make sure of the ID.  I only say kill because by the time anyone's done counting all the scale rows and fin rays, etc. it's not going to be doing too well...