---
title: Bicolor Parrotfish (Cetoscarus bicolor)
scientific_name: Cetoscarus bicolor
common_name: Bicolor Parrotfish
taxon: Parrotfishes
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-15T13:49:01.563Z
updated: 2026-08-13T12:14:22.347Z
tags: Bicolor Parrotfish, Cetoscarus bicolor, Parrotfishes, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/parrotfishes/bicolor-parrotfish
---

# Bicolor Parrotfish (*Cetoscarus bicolor*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Parrotfishes (*Scaridae*)
- **Size:** up to 80 cm
- **Weight:** 2.4 Kg
- **Depth:** 1-30 m
- **Diet:** Herbivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Coral-rich outer reef and slopes
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Protogynous hermaphrodite
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- males green with pink-edged scales and a pink band across the snout
- females dark brown-black in front, bright yellow behind, with a dusted head
- juveniles white with a broad orange band and a black eye spot
- length up to 80 cm

Three animals in one species. The juvenile is white with a broad orange band and a black spot on the dorsal fin. The female is dark brown in front and bright yellow behind, head dusted with dark speckles. The male is green with pink-edged scales and a pink stripe across the snout, and reaches 80 cm (32 in).

They are stages, not sexes and species. A fish grows through the juvenile pattern into a female, and a proportion of females later become males, changing color completely as they do - which is why old guidebooks list the phases as separate species and why photographs of the three are still mislabeled.

The beak grinds coral for the algae inside it, and what comes out the other end is sand: parrotfish are the reason a reef has a beach. A large adult processes several hundred kilos of it a year.

At night it wedges into a crevice and secretes a bag of mucus around itself - a sleeping bag that masks its scent from hunting morays and blocks parasites. Half an hour to build, abandoned every morning.

## Also known as

- **English:** bicolour parrotfish, Bicolor Parrotfish, Bumphead Parrotfish
- **Arabic:** Ghabban
- **Hebrew:** תוכידג דו-גוני
- **French:** Perroquet à points rouges, Perroquet bicolore, Poisson-perroquet Baleine
- **Italian:** Pesce pappagallo bicolore
- **German:** Masken-Papageifisch
- **Spanish:** Loro de Manchas Rojas, Loro bicolor
- **Portuguese:** Papagaio Bicolor, Papagaio-bicolor, Peixe-papagaio-bicolor
- **Polish:** Papugoryba dwubarwna
- **Czech:** ploskozubec dvoubarevný
- **Japanese:** Irobudai, イロブダイ
- **Chinese:** 双色鲸鹦嘴鱼, 菜仔魚(雌), 蠔魚
- **Russian:** Двухцветная рыба-попугай
- **CA:** Peix lloro bicolor
- **DA:** Tofarvet papegøjefisk
- **FIJ:** soqo
- **MSA:** Perencong
- **SW:** Pono
- **TGL:** Isdang loro, Luro, Lutiin
- **TH:** ปลานกแก้วสองสี

## Scientific synonyms

- *Bolbometopon bicolor* (Rüppell, 1829)
- *Callyodon pulchellus* (Rüppell, 1835)
- *Cetoscarus bicolour* (Rüppell, 1829)
- *Cetoscarus pulchellus* (Rüppell, 1835)
- *Chlorurus bicolor* (Rüppell, 1829)
- *Chlorurus pulchellus* (Rüppell, 1835)
- *Pseudoscarus nigripinnis* Günther, 1867
- *Scarus bicolor* Rüppell, 1829
- *Scarus pulchellus* Rüppell, 1835

## Range

Federal Republic of Somalia, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Mozambique, Red Sea, Seychelles

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/parrotfishes/bicolor-parrotfish)*
*Updated: August 13, 2026*