---
title: Blue-barred Parrotfish (Scarus ghobban)
scientific_name: Scarus ghobban
common_name: Blue-barred Parrotfish
taxon: Parrotfishes
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-15T13:49:01.563Z
updated: 2026-08-20T22:42:58.581Z
tags: Blue-barred Parrotfish, Scarus ghobban, Parrotfishes, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/parrotfishes/blue-barred-parrotfish
---

# Blue-barred Parrotfish (*Scarus ghobban*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Parrotfishes (*Scaridae*)
- **Size:** up to 75 cm
- **Depth:** 1-90 m
- **Diet:** Herbivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Reef, rubble and adjacent sand, often in turbid water
- **Reproduction:** Protogynous hermaphrodite
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- initial phase yellowish with four or five broad blue-green bars
- terminal males blue-green with salmon-pink scale edges and a blue chin
- steep blunt head and a heavy beak
- up to 75 cm

One species, two fish, and for a long time the literature carried them as separate species.

Parrotfish live in two color phases. Young fish and most females wear the initial phase: in this species yellowish with four or five broad blue-green bars, unremarkable and easy to overlook. A few become terminal males, and a terminal male of this species is blue-green with salmon-pink edges to every scale and a blue chin, half a meter or more, patrolling a territory. Nothing about the two suggests one animal.

The switch is not only color. A female changing into a terminal male rebuilds her gonads, grows, changes her behavior from grazing in a loose group to holding ground and courting, and does the whole thing in weeks.

What triggers it is social. Remove the terminal male from a group and the largest initial-phase fish begins the change within days, which means the population carries a standing reserve of replacements and the reef never runs short of them.

This one tolerates murky water and river-influenced coast better than most parrotfish, so it turns up on ground where the rest of the family thins out.

## Also known as

- **English:** blue-barred parrotfish, Blue Trim Parrotfish, bluechin parrotfish
- **Hebrew:** תוכינון
- **French:** Perroquet à Bord Bleu, Perroquet à Ecailles Jaunes, Perroquet à bandes bleues
- **Spanish:** loro barbazul, Loro de Escamas Amarillas, Loro Barba Azul
- **Portuguese:** Papagaio de Escamas Amarelas, Nyabugui Senene, Papagaio
- **Japanese:** ヒブダイ, Hibudai
- **Chinese:** 紅蠔魚(雌), 紅衫, 藍點鸚哥魚

## Scientific synonyms

- *Callyodon apridentatus* Smith, 1956
- *Callyodon dussumieri* (Valenciennes, 1840)
- *Callyodon fuscocuneus* Fowler, 1935
- *Callyodon ghobban* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Callyodon guttatus* (Bloch & Schneider, 1801)
- *Callyodon speigleri* Smith, 1956
- *Hemistoma reticulata* (Swainson, 1839)
- *Pseudoscarus californiensis* Pellegrin, 1901
- *Pseudoscarus cantori* Bleeker, 1861
- *Pseudoscarus flavipinnis* De Vis, 1885
- *Pseudoscarus garretti* Günther, 1909
- *Pseudoscarus natalensis* Gilchrist & Thompson, 1909
- *Pseudoscarus nudirostris* Alleyne & MacLeay, 1877
- *Pseudoscarus papuensis* MacLeay, 1883
- *Scarus apridentatus* Smith
- *Scarus azureus* Meek & Hildebrand, 1928
- *Scarus dussumieri* Valenciennes, 1840
- *Scarus fehlmanni* Schultz, 1969
- *Scarus ghoban* Forsskål, 1775
- *Scarus guttatus* Bloch & Schneider, 1801
- *Scarus haridoides* Bleeker, 1855
- *Scarus lacerta* Valenciennes, 1840
- *Scarus maculosus* Lacepède, 1802
- *Scarus magrathii* Bennett, 1841
- *Scarus noyesi* Heller & Snodgrass, 1903

## Range

Djibouti, Federal Republic of Somalia, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Mediterranean Sea - Eastern Basin, Mozambique, Red Sea, Republic of Mauritius, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/parrotfishes/blue-barred-parrotfish)*
*Updated: August 20, 2026*