---
title: Marbled Parrotfish (Leptoscarus vaigiensis)
scientific_name: Leptoscarus vaigiensis
common_name: Marbled Parrotfish
taxon: Parrotfishes
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-15T13:49:01.563Z
updated: 2026-08-13T21:24:54.809Z
tags: Marbled Parrotfish, Leptoscarus vaigiensis, Parrotfishes, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/parrotfishes/marbled-parrotfish
---

# Marbled Parrotfish (*Leptoscarus vaigiensis*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Parrotfishes (*Scaridae*)
- **Size:** up to 35 cm
- **Depth:** 1-15 m
- **Diet:** Herbivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Seagrass beds and weedy shallows, rarely on coral
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- mottled green-brown, marbled rather than boldly colored
- in seagrass rather than on coral
- beak weaker and less fused than in reef parrotfishes
- length up to 35 cm

A drab marbled parrotfish in a seagrass bed, which is already two departures from what a parrotfish is supposed to be. This species breaks nearly every rule of its family, and that is the reason it has a card.

It does not change sex. Every other parrotfish here starts female and turns male, complete with a change of color; this one has fixed sexes for life, and males and females look much the same.

It does not eat rock either. Instead of biting coral for the algae inside it, it crops seagrass and the fine weed growing on the blades, so it produces no sand at all - and it lives in beds and weedy shallows where no other parrotfish bothers to go.

It also lays eggs among the vegetation instead of spawning into open water in most of its range. Thirty-five centimeters (14 in) of parrotfish doing everything differently, in a habitat most divers swim over on the way to the reef.

## Also known as

- **English:** marbled parrotfish, Blue-spotted Parrotfish, Marbled Parrot-fish
- **French:** Perroquet des herbiers, Perroquet Pétrole, Perroquet marbré
- **Italian:** Pesce pappagallo marmorizzato
- **German:** Seegras-Papageifisch
- **Spanish:** Loro Jaspeado
- **Portuguese:** Papagaio Manchado, Dunya, Lundo
- **Czech:** ploskozubec travní
- **Japanese:** ミゾレブダイ, Mizorebudai
- **Chinese:** 纖鸚嘴魚, 纖鸚鯉, 臊魚
- **Russian:** Лептоскар
- **CA:** Peix lloro d'algues
- **SW:** Pono
- **TAH:** tapi'o
- **TGL:** Isdang loro, Luro, Lutiin

## Scientific synonyms

- *Calliodon chlorolepis* Richardson, 1844
- *Calliodon chlorolepsis* Richardson, 1844
- *Leptoscarus coeruleopunctatus* (Rüppell, 1835)
- *Leptoscarus vaigeinsis* (Quoy & Gaimard, 1824)
- *Leptoscarus vaigensis* (Quoy & Gaimard, 1824)
- *Leptoscarus vaigienis* (Quoy & Gaimard, 1824)
- *Scarichthys auritus* (Valenciennes, 1840)
- *Scarichthys caeruleopunctatus* (Rüppell, 1835)
- *Scarus auritus* Valenciennes, 1840
- *Scarus bottae* Valenciennes, 1840
- *Scarus caeruleo-punctatus* Rüppell, 1835
- *Scarus coeruleopunctatus* Rüppell, 1835
- *Scarus naevius* Valenciennes, 1840
- *Scarus rubronotatus* Valenciennes, 1840
- *Scarus vaigiensis* Quoy & Gaimard, 1824

## Range

Comoros, Federal Republic of Somalia, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, New Zealand, Red Sea, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania

---

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