Blog Post Sixteen
#COLORSOFTHEOCEAN_16
Does this fish look familiar to you? It should, if you read last month’s blog. This is the Bird Wrasse, Gomphosus Varius. He looks slightly different than the image last month. That is because it is a terminal, or fully mature male. He is a beautiful emerald green with a blue tipped nose. There is a translucent blue spot on the very back of their tail/caudal fin. The image last month was the same fish but in it’s initial phase as a young male or a female. Like all wrasse species, they are synchronous protogynous hermaphadites. Meaning, they are born female and have the ability to change into a male later in their life. This type of change may occur due to social circumstances or perhaps food availability.
They can get up to 12 inches in length. They both have a long nose/snout that enables them to reach between the coral and into the cracks and crevices of the reef. It is in there that they find their food, which are crabs and mollusks. They have pectoral/side fins that flutter up and down much like a bird flapping it’s wings, which helps to propel them through the water.