Hemigymnus melapterus facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Hemigymnus melapterus |
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The blackeye thicklip wrasse, also known as the half-and-half wrasse (Hemigymnus melapterus), is a type of fish. It belongs to the wrasse family. You can find this fish in the warm waters of the Indo-Pacific ocean.
Contents
What Does It Look Like?
The half-and-half wrasse is a medium-sized fish. It can grow up to 50 centimeters (about 20 inches) long.
Its body is tall and a bit flat. It has a large head and thick lips. The fish's colors change as it gets older. Young wrasse are greenish-yellow with yellow stripes. They have a wide white band behind their gills. Their tail fin is orange, and the front of their body is greenish-gray.
Adult females are green behind the white band. Their scales have black edges. Their snout and head have a mix of pink and turquoise lines. Adult males look even more colorful. They have emerald green stripes on each scale. A blue ring goes around their eyes. Their snout and head are green with pink and turquoise patterns.
Where Does It Live?
This fish lives in tropical and subtropical waters. You can find it across the Indo-Pacific region. This area stretches from eastern Africa (including the Red Sea) to Polynesia. It also goes from New Caledonia up to southern Japan.
The half-and-half wrasse likes areas with coral, broken coral, and sand. It lives on outer reef slopes and drop-offs. It can be found at depths of at least 40 meters (about 130 feet). Young fish are shyer. They usually hide among branching corals.
What Does It Eat?
The half-and-half wrasse lives alone or in small groups. It is a benthic predator. This means it hunts for food on or in the seafloor. It mainly eats small sea creatures without backbones. These include crustaceans (like crabs), mollusks (like snails), worms, and echinoderms (like sea stars).
It picks food off coral branches. It also takes mouthfuls of sand. The fish sorts out the food in its mouth. Then, it spits the sand out through its gills.
Life Cycle and Reproduction
Like most wrasse, this fish is a protogynous hermaphrodite. This is a fancy way of saying something cool! It means that these fish start their lives as females. Later, some of them can change and become males.
Is It Protected?
People do catch this fish for aquariums. They also catch it for food and with spears. However, scientists do not think it is in danger. The half-and-half wrasse lives in several large protected areas. The IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) lists it as a Least Concern species. This means it is not currently at risk of disappearing.
