[2] The roving coral grouper is a widespread but quite rare species can be found in the Indo-Pacific, from the Red Sea, south along the East African coast to Mozambique and Madagascar and east across the Indian Ocean to the Coral Triangle of the Western Pacific Ocean.

[4][5][6] The roving coral grouper was first formally described as Plectropoma pessuliferum by the American ichthyologist Henry Weed Fowler (1878–1965) with the type locality given as Padang in Sumatra.

[3] Phylogenetic analyses showed that P. pessuliferus, which is a relatively small species and has with a distribution from the central Indian ocean to the Coral Triangle, is the sister species of the Leopard coral grouper (P. leopardus) and is not the closest relative of the Red Sea taxon, P.p.

[1] The roving coral grouper is caught using spear, hand lines, gill nets and traps.

In the Maldives, it is exported to southeast Asia for sale in the live reef fish trade and it is considered to be of high value.