Golden Wrasse

Interesting Info

• The Golden Wrasse lives across the central Indo-Pacific—from the Christmas Islands, Indonesia, Tonga, and Japan, all the way east to the Great Barrier Reef and northern New South Wales.
• This fish is almost all bright canary-yellow—like a tiny sunbeam under the ocean!
• You might notice black spots outlined in white or yellow on its dorsal fin—your secret clue that it’s a Golden Wrasse.
• Young wrasses and females often have two or three black spots. As they grow into males, only the front spot remains, and the face may show faint green and pink lines.
• They live on reef edges, rubble zones, and sandy patches, usually staying in shallow water up to about 30 m (100 ft).
• They hunt tiny prey like shrimp, worms, and little snails by nipping them off the sand and coral.
• These wrasses start life as females, and some change into males later—a pretty neat trick to keep the reef family balanced.
• Golden Wrasses are pelagic spawners—at dusk, pairs swim up into the water and release clouds of tiny eggs that drift with the current before hatching into planktonic larvae.
• They sleep buried in the sand at night or when they are scared—like a sandy blanket keeping them hidden.
• In the wild, a Golden Wrasse can live up to 10 years.