---
title: Purplestreak Parrotfish (Chlorurus genazonatus)
scientific_name: Chlorurus genazonatus
common_name: Purplestreak Parrotfish
taxon: Parrotfishes
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-15T14:11:21.603Z
updated: 2026-08-20T23:20:17.816Z
tags: Purplestreak Parrotfish, Chlorurus genazonatus, Parrotfishes, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/parrotfishes/purplestreak-parrotfish
---

# Purplestreak Parrotfish (*Chlorurus genazonatus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Parrotfishes (*Scaridae*)
- **Size:** 31 cm
- **Depth:** 6-20 m
- **Diet:** Herbivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Coral reef and rubble
- **Reproduction:** Egg layer, Protogynous hermaphrodite
- **Endemic:** Endemic to the Red Sea
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- males green with a pink bar on every scale and a pink stripe running from the eye across the cheek
- initial-phase fish plainer, gray-brown
- small for a parrotfish, around 30 cm
- up to 31 cm

A parrotfish that lives here and in the Gulf of Aden and nowhere else, which is rarer in this family than it sounds. Most parrotfish are spread across whole oceans: their larvae drift for weeks, adults are strong swimmers, and the group is not given to being confined. A parrotfish restricted to one basin means that basin has been isolated long enough and often enough to hold one in place.

That is the Red Sea's whole biography in one animal. Repeated ice ages dropped the sea level far enough to nearly close the strait at the southern end, and what was inside was cut off in water that became hotter and saltier than anything outside. Species went in and different species came out.

A terminal male is worth finding. Green over the body with a pink bar on every scale, so the whole flank reads as fine pink stitching, and a clean pink stripe running back from the eye across the cheek. Initial-phase fish are plain gray-brown and give nothing away.

It is small by parrotfish standards, around thirty centimeters, and works coral and rubble like the rest of them.

## Also known as

- **English:** Purplestreak Parrotfish, Sinai Parrotfish
- **Arabic:** Ghabban
- **French:** Perroquet de Sinai
- **Italian:** Pesce pappagallo del Sinai, Pesce pappagallo guancia viola
- **German:** Purpurwangen-Papageifisch
- **Spanish:** Loro de Sinaí
- **Portuguese:** Peixe-papagaio-de-mancha-roxa
- **Czech:** ploskozubec purpurolící
- **CA:** Peix lloro galta violeta

## Scientific synonyms

- *Scarus genazonatus* Randall & Bruce, 1983

## Range

Federal Republic of Somalia

---

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