Midnight parrotfish

📖 Overview

Occurs from rocky coastal reefs to seaward reefs . Often in schools, feeding with surgeonfishes by scraping off algae from rocks or dead coral . Marketed fresh and salted .

🔬 Taxonomy

🐟 Physical Description

Dorsal spines (total): 9; Dorsal soft rays (total): 10; Anal spines: 3; Anal soft rays: 11. With blue-green teeth. Adults generally black or blue-black, with centers of scales and unscaled part of head bright blue, and blue band between eyes. Only large black or blue-black parrotfish in the Caribbean .: fusiform / normal.

🌀 Behaviour

As is the case with other large-bodied parrotfish species, midnight parrotfish are relatively rare throughout their range. However, in areas where they are not fished for, they can be locally abundant; in such areas, feeding midnight parrotfish may form schools of over 30 individuals in order to raid food from the algae "farms" and egg nests of territorial damselfish (e.g., sergeant majors and Stegastes), overwhelming the damselfish's defences with their sheer numbers. Bite scars found on sergeant major damselfish nests indicate this behaviour is common. Midnight parrotfish are often found schooling with large numbers of blue tang for extended period of time when feeding. These mixed schools feed together on algae, and are typically composed of 50 to 400 blue tang with 1-7 midnight parrotfish, although mixed schools where over a third of the individuals are midnight parrotfish have also been recorded. There are several hypothesized advantages to this mixed schooling behaviour. It may camouflage midnight parrotfish against the blue tang school, as both species are similar in colouration, protecting the former from predators. Blue tang are also armed with sharp tail spines, which in this context may further deter predators from the parrotfish. Mixed schooling may also increase the parrotfish's access to food sources, as large groups of blue tang are able to access algae from damselfish territories that are otherwise too heavily defended by the damselfish for the parrotfish to feed from.

🦐 Diet

The midnight parrotfish, along with other parrotfishes, is primarily a herbivore. Their main source of food is algae, which they scrape from coral and other hard substrates using their beak. Through this process, the parrotfish also consumes carbonate sediments and assists in moving sediment around the reef. The midnight parrotfish can take up to 16,000 bites a day as an adult, and 28,000 a day as a juvenile. In addition to herbivory, midnight parrotfish have also been observed consuming sergeant major damselfish eggs. Unlike other species of parrotfish that live in mangrove forests, the midnight parrotfish has not been shown to consume sponges.

🥚 Reproduction

Oviparous, distinct pairing during breeding .

🌍 Habitat & Distribution

Marine; reef-associated; depth range 5 - 75 m , usually ? - 20 m. Tropical; 34°N - 26°S, 99°W - 32°W

🌿 Ecology

📐 Morphometrics

🌡️ Water Parameters & Tolerance

🛡️ Conservation Assessment

📊 Population Risk & Fisheries

🎣 Angling Guide

📊 Population Dynamics

🌐 Names & Taxonomy

🐠 Related Species

🔍 Similar Species

🗺️ Global Occurrence Map

Occurrence records from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) - 17 records indexed .

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