---
title: Common Parrotfish (Scarus psittacus)
scientific_name: Scarus psittacus
common_name: Common Parrotfish
taxon: Parrotfishes
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-15T13:49:01.563Z
updated: 2026-08-13T12:48:51.779Z
tags: Common Parrotfish, Scarus psittacus, Parrotfishes, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/parrotfishes/common-parrotfish
---

# Common Parrotfish (*Scarus psittacus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Parrotfishes (*Scaridae*)
- **Size:** up to 43 cm
- **Weight:** 1.8 Kg
- **Depth:** 2-25 m
- **Diet:** Herbivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Shallow reef and rubble, in loose feeding groups
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Protogynous hermaphrodite
- **Hazard:** Poisonous
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- males blue-green with a pink-orange patch on the cheek and a pale snout
- females plain gray-brown with a pale belly, often in small groups
- beak pale, worn smooth, scraping visibly at rock
- length up to 43 cm

The parrotfish a diver sees most and photographs least: males blue-green with a pale snout and a pink cheek patch, females plain gray-brown, both grazing shallow rock in loose groups. Up to 43 cm (17 in).

Parrotfish do not eat coral for the coral. The beak scrapes the thin film of algae and cyanobacteria growing on dead limestone, taking rock with it, and a throat mill grinds the mouthful before digestion. That grazing is what stops a reef being smothered: on reefs where parrotfish have been fished out, algae take over within a few seasons and coral larvae have nowhere clean to settle.

The by-product is sand. Everything scraped off is passed as fine white grains, and a single fish produces hundreds of kilos a year, so the beaches around a healthy reef are largely parrotfish output.

Like the rest of the family it sleeps in a mucus cocoon, changes sex and color on the way up the hierarchy, and is spear-fished heavily at night, when a sleeping fish in a crevice is trivially easy to take.

## Also known as

- **English:** common parrotfish, Batavian Parrotfish, palenose parrotfish
- **Arabic:** سمكة الببغاء الشائعة, Ghabban
- **French:** Perroquet à gros ventre, Perroquet Prairie, Perroquet commun
- **Italian:** Pesce pappagallo guance rosa
- **German:** Fahlnasen-Papageifisch
- **Portuguese:** Papagaio Vulgar, Peixe-papagaio-de-bochecha-rosada
- **Czech:** Ploskozubec papouščí
- **Japanese:** オウムブダイ, Omubudai, Ômubudai
- **Chinese:** 棕吻鸚哥魚, 棕吻鸚嘴魚, 棕吻鹦嘴鱼
- **CA:** Peix lloro arc de Sant Martí comú
- **MSA:** Kalat, Ketarap, Perencong
- **TGL:** Isdang loro, Luro, Lutiin

## Scientific synonyms

- *Callyodon bataviensis* (Bleeker, 1857)
- *Callyodon erythacus* Jordan & Seale, 1906
- *Callyodon forsteri* (Valenciennes, 1840)
- *Callyodon hornbosteli* Fowler, 1925
- *Pseudocarus oktodon* Bleeker, 1861
- *Pseudoscarus filholi* Sauvage, 1880
- *Pseudoscarus forskalii* Klunzinger, 1871
- *Pseudoscarus labiosus* MacLeay, 1883
- *Scarus balinensis* Bleeker, 1849
- *Scarus bataviensis* Bleeker, 1857
- *Scarus brunneus* Jenkins, 1901
- *Scarus forskalii* (Klunzinger, 1871)
- *Scarus forsteri* Valenciennes, 1840
- *Scarus galena* Jordan, 1925
- *Scarus gilberti* Jenkins, 1901
- *Scarus hertit* Valenciennes, 1840
- *Scarus jenkinsi* Jordan & Evermann, 1903
- *Scarus oktodon* (Bleeker, 1861)
- *Scarus taeniurus* Valenciennes, 1840
- *Scarus venosus* Valenciennes, 1840
- *Xanothon bataviensis* (Bleeker, 1857)
- *Xanothon carifanus* Smith, 1956
- *Xanothon oktodon* (Bleeker, 1861)
- *Xanothon parvidens* Smith, 1956
- *Xanothon venosus* (Valenciennes, 1840)

## Range

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

---

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