The oval grouper has a compressed, oval-shaped body and its depth is 2.0 to 2.8 times its standard length.

[6] The oval grouper has been recorded over on rocky or soft bottoms, consisting of sand or silty mud, at depths of 22 to 103 metres (72 to 338 ft).

[2] The oval grouper is frequently taken as by-catch by fishers using bottom trawls and it is valued as a food fish.

[6] The oval grouper was first formally described in 1842 as Serranus dermopterus in 1842 by the Dutch zoologist Coenraad Jacob Temminck (1778-1858) and his student, the German ichthyologist Hermann Schlegel (1804–1884), with the type locality given as Nagasaki.

[7] In 1910 the American ichthyologists David Starr Jordan (1851–1931) and Robert Earl Richardson (1877–1935) placed the species in the genus Trisotropis which is now a synonym of Mycteroperca.