Anisotremus virginicus has a deep, compressed body with a very high back and a short, blunt head.

Within the Gulf it is found at the Flower Garden Banks and on the Mexican coast as far south as the northern Yucatan Peninsula and also northwestern Cuba.

[4] Anisotremus virginicus inhabits reefs and areas of rock substrate in shallow inshore waters at depths of 2–20 m (6.6–65.6 ft).

[5] It is a nocturnal species which frequently moves around in large schools, occasionally swimming with white grunts.

[8] When the American ichthyologist Theodore Nicholas Gill created the genus Anisotremus he named Sparus virginicus as its type species.