A Compendium of Wrasses

Wrasses have etched a conspicuous space in my earliest diving memories. Whether in temperate or tropical waters, these curious and predictable busybodies would scull past like rowers, a jerky forward motion with extended fanning of their pectoral fins. Wrasse life seemed centred around endless territorial patrols. Perhaps I was lured to them as a photographer. If you missed on the first pass, you only had to wait a while until they came around again. Some of the shyer species limited human contact and could only be approached in ambush. Frustratingly, it was only a one shot opportunity with them. In retrospect, I suspect wrasses have wasted more of my air than any other of the piscatorial families.

Wrasses belong to the family Labridae which, depending on who you consult, may or may not include the Parrotfishes as a subfamily Scarinae.  Some record them as a seperate family, Scaridae. This book will straddle this thorny divide and include the Parrotfishes but report the the Labrids and Scarids in separate sections. There are around 700 species in 91 genera with mature lengths between 5 cm and 1.7 metres. Wrasses favour shallow water coral reefs and rocky reef platforms and shores.

This book includes 500 colour plates and 142 species from Australia, the Coral Sea and the Coral Triangle (Raja Ampat and Sulawesi). Many of these images are from a companion volume, Reef Fish, A Celebration of Indo-Pacific Reef Fish. The images are from digital SLR’s (since 2005). Mine have mostly been taken on SCUBA and Pam’s images have been taken whilst free diving (from the surface to a depth of 12 metres). Any errors in species identification are my own.  We are mere shutter jockeys, not biologists.  Feed-back is most welcome as we will update and correct this book from time to time.

Image captions cite the common name, the binomial (scientific) name, the describer’s surname and the year described, the maximum length for the terminal phase male (not necessarily the fish in the image) and a location for that image.

 

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