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Project Noah Nature School
Thalassoma duperrey
Initial phase male and female adults have a blue-green head followed by an orange band that intensifies during spawning. The rest of the body is blue-green with narrow magenta vertical lines. Terminal males (supermales) have a diffuse white bar behind the orange bar and a crescent shape tail fin. They can turn the white bar on and off. Grows to 10 inches.
Occur from the shallows down to about 70 ft. Endemic.
Interesting social life! Successful supermales spawn with up to 20 females a day; these females spawn at most once a day with any male they fancy, often returning to the same partner. Other females prefer group sex, spawning once a day with up to about 40 initial phase males in a single upward rush. Group spawning occurs primarily on shallow protected reefs where visibility is poor. To ensure social balance females change into supermales when they grow larger than a certain proportion of other females within their home range. As far as is known however, initial phase males never enter the terminal stage.
Spotted on Apr 17, 2012
Submitted on May 7, 2012
1 Comment
photo #1 may be a supermale with the white bar "turned off" as it has the lunate tail fin.