TAXONOMY

Class:  Actinopterygii (ray-finned fishes)

Order:   Perciformes (Perch-likes)

Family: Labridae (Wrasses)

Genus/species:   Epibulus insidiator

 

GENERAL CHARACTERICS

Max length : 54.0 cm. The mouth of this species is protrusible and unfolds into a tube easily half the body length. The jaws swing forward into a long tube that strong suction to catch prey. When not in use, the entire apparatus is conveniently folded under the head.

Small juveniles are brown with thin white bars. Color varies with age and sex, but adult color is variable, including with an all-yellow xanthic form. Terminal males are dark with a white head and a dark streak extending horizontally through the eye. Male becomes ornamented with orange and yellow over the back. Juveniles dark with fine vertical white lines. Intermediates with yellow blotches, pale tail and sometimes with black pectoral fins.

 

DISTRIBUTION/HABITAT

Tropical marine waters of the Indo-Pacific, from the Red Sea, throughout South-east Asia and Micronesia, north to Japan, south to Australia and east to the Tuamoto Islands. In Australia it is known from the north-western coast of Western Australia, around the tropical north of the country, and from the entire length of the Great Barrier Reef, Queensland.  E. insidiator inhabits coral-rich areas of lagoon and seaward reefs

 

DIET IN THE WILD

Small coral-dwelling crustaceans and fishes.

 

Location: Venoms Cluster PR 27

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