---
title: Yellowtail Tang (Zebrasoma xanthurum)
scientific_name: Zebrasoma xanthurum
common_name: Yellowtail Tang
taxon: Surgeonfishes
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-01T12:26:18.819Z
updated: 2026-08-12T22:29:24.833Z
tags: Yellowtail Tang, Zebrasoma xanthurum, Surgeonfishes, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/surgeonfishes/yellowtail-tang
---

# Yellowtail Tang (*Zebrasoma xanthurum*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Surgeonfishes (*Acanthuridae*)
- **Size:** up to 37 cm
- **Depth:** 1-25 m
- **Diet:** Herbivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Coral-rich reef and rocky ground, in the top 20 m
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- deep purple-blue body finely speckled darker, with a bright yellow tail
- high sail-like dorsal and anal fins, raised in disputes
- white scalpel blade at the base of the tail
- length up to 37 cm

Deep purple-blue with a bright yellow tail and tall sail-like fins - one of the most recognizable fish in this sea and one of the few that photographs badly, because the purple reads as flat gray unless the light is close.

It lives here, in the Gulf of Aden and around into the Persian Gulf, and effectively nowhere else. That, plus the color, is why it is among the most exported aquarium fish taken from this coast, sold worldwide under the name purple tang and priced accordingly.

Like every surgeonfish it carries a hinged blade at the base of the tail, folded into a groove and flicked out sideways with a sweep of the body. It is used on rivals rather than divers, and it cuts.

The fins are the display. Two males meeting raise the dorsal and anal fins to their full height, which nearly doubles the apparent size of the fish, and circle until one gives way - a fight settled by geometry rather than contact. Grazing is constant in between: it crops filamentous algae off rock all day, which is unglamorous and is what keeps a reef from turning into a lawn.

## Also known as

- **English:** purple tang, Yellowtail Tang, yellowtail surgeonfish
- **French:** Acanthure à Queue Jaune
- **Swedish:** Gulstjärtad Kirurgfisk
- **DA:** Kejserkirurgfisk

## Scientific synonyms

- *Acanthurus xanthurus* Blyth, 1852
- *Zebrasoma xanthurus* (Blyth, 1852)

## Range

Djibouti, Eritrea, Federal Republic of Somalia, Red Sea

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/surgeonfishes/yellowtail-tang)*
*Updated: August 12, 2026*