The speckled peacock has reportedly a fairly uniform, continuous growth rate until it dies of old age.

Features

The Speckled Peacock Bass have dark blotches on the opercula and three distinctive vertical bars on the body that may become more pronounced with age.

There are light and faint spots on the dorsal and caudal fins and a hump on top of the head of breeding males.

And of course, there is the characteristic black circular eye spot that is rimmed in gold and located on caudal fin, which is shared by all peacock bass. This spot closely resembles the tail plume of a peacock fowl. Hence, the name peacock bass became the perfect moniker.

The speckled bass often forms an opaque band on the otoliths, which coincides with the dry season between November and April. These bands form once per year.

The Speckled Peacock Bass is the largest of the peacock/pavon species as it can grow up to a three feet, four inches in length. It is slightly elongate with a large head, and it looks more like a bass than the other peacock subspecies.

There is some orange on the tail under the eye spot but the rest of the speckled peacock bass is dark to yellow down the side and white on the underside of the fish. It has three dark vertical bars and a series of horizontal rows of cream, coloured spots and during spawning, the males acquire nuchal hump during spawning.

Size

The Speckled Peacock Bass attains the greatest size of all peacock bass with the largest one on record being a 28 pound peacock bass, though this record is expected to be a temporary record with some many fish being caught in the mid 20 pound range. The normal expected adult size is ten pounds, but those exceeding this weight are common in some areas.

The speckled peacock has reportedly a fairly uniform, continuous growth rate until it dies of old age. The average size of most peacock bass is six and 10 pounds may be taken on a good day and in a few select places, monsters over 15 pounds can be caught occasionally.

The Speckled Peacock Bass is also the largest of the species in terms of the length that it can achieve with the record speckled peacock bass reaching three feet, four inches in length.