[2] The tiger grouper is found in the western Atlantic Ocean from southeastern Florida, Bermuda and the Bahamas, as well as the Flower Garden Banks in the north, southwards through the Caribbean Sea to the Maroni River in French Guiana.

[1] The tiger grouper is a solitary species which is found on coral reefs and in rocky areas.

The population around Bermuda has a size distribution and sex ratio which suggest that tiger groupers are protogynous hermaphrodites, all of the fish with a total length less than 37 centimetres (15 in) were female and all of the fish with a total length greater than 45 centimetres (18 in) were male.

It is known to form spawning aggregations in the northern part of its range but these have not been recorded off Brazil.

[1] The tiger grouper was first formally described as Serranus tigris in 1833 by the French zoologist Achille Valenciennes (1794–1865) with the type locality given as San Domingo.