Guardian Nature School Team Contact Blog Project Noah Facebook Project Noah Twitter

A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife

Join Project Noah!
nature school apple icon

Project Noah Nature School visit nature school

Stoplight Parrotfish

Sparisoma viride

Description:

Photo take at -45 ft on a coral reef this adult parrotfish just pass by on the blue sea. Young adults and females with scales outlined in darker gray; often bright red below. Super males green, with bright yellow spot at upper edge of gill cover, yellow bar at base of tail, curved orange-yellow mark on caudal fin rays. Initial phase fish with a brown head, the scales of the upper two-thirds of the body with pale centers and dark brown edges, the lower third of body and fins bright red. Terminal phase males are green with three diagonal orange bands on upper half of head.It is normally found during the day between 15–80 ft. at night they make and special bubble around them for protection.

Habitat:

Found on the coral reefs and algae bottoms from Florida, all the Caribbean sea to Brazil.

Species ID Suggestions



Sign in to suggest organism ID

6 Comments

Gerardo Aizpuru
Gerardo Aizpuru 10 years ago

Thanks Lauren :)

LaurenZarate
LaurenZarate 10 years ago

Very beautiful Gerardo..

Gerardo Aizpuru
Gerardo Aizpuru 11 years ago

Thanks Yuko :)

YukoChartraw
YukoChartraw 11 years ago

Incredibly beautiful!

Gerardo Aizpuru
Gerardo Aizpuru 11 years ago

Thanks Cody Yes is amazing the fact of the sand sounds unreal, they are very cool is one of my favorite fish:)

Cody.conway
Cody.conway 11 years ago

Beautiful portrait! I did research on these guys in Belize, got to know their feeding habits quite personally :-) Cool fact I had learned is most of the "white sand" is crushed coral that comes in the defecate of this species!

Gerardo Aizpuru
Spotted by
Gerardo Aizpuru

Playa del Carmen, Mexico

Spotted on Jan 5, 2013
Submitted on Jan 5, 2013

Related Spottings

Stoplight Parrotfish Stoplight Parrotfish Vieja (macho) Stoplight parrotfish

Nearby Spottings

Sand Tilefish Dasher Beach Almond Slim Mexican Mantis
Noah Guardians
Noah Sponsors
join Project Noah Team

Join the Project Noah Team