---
title: Broomtail Wrasse (Cheilinus lunulatus)
scientific_name: Cheilinus lunulatus
common_name: Broomtail Wrasse
taxon: Wrasse
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-01-01T16:08:13.442Z
updated: 2026-08-14T09:25:27.147Z
tags: Broomtail Wrasse, Cheilinus lunulatus, Wrasse, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/wrasse/broomtail-wrasse
---

# Broomtail Wrasse (*Cheilinus lunulatus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Wrasse (*Labridae*)
- **Size:** up to 50 cm
- **Depth:** 2-30 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Coral-rich reef and lagoon with rubble patches
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Protogynous hermaphrodite
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- large wrasse with a tail that frays into separate stiff filaments with age
- males blue-green with fine dark scale outlines and a yellow-orange throat
- females and young duller, with a plain rounded tail
- length up to 50 cm

A big blue-green wrasse whose tail has come apart. The rear edge frays into stiff separate rays with age, so an old male trails something closer to a broom than a fin, and the effect gets more pronounced the older the fish is.

It hunts hard-shelled animals - crabs, snails, urchins, brittle stars - and takes them apart with heavy conical teeth and a set of crushing plates in the throat. Watch one work a rubble patch and it will pick a stone up in its mouth, carry it aside, and go through what was underneath.

That habit makes it worth following on a dive. Wrasses of this size turn over a lot of bottom, and goatfish, small wrasses and jacks tag along to take whatever escapes - a feeding broomtail usually has a retinue.

Like nearly every wrasse it starts female and turns male, and the biggest, gaudiest fish on a patch of reef was once a plain brown one. This species belongs to the Red Sea and the western Indian Ocean; the Pacific has other, similar fish that are not this one.

## Also known as

- **English:** broomtail wrasse
- **Arabic:** سمك الرأس ذيل المكنسة, Rabadia
- **Hebrew:** תפאר סהרוני
- **French:** Labre à frange, Vieille balayette
- **Italian:** Tordo dalla coda festonata
- **German:** Besenschwanz-Prachtlippfisch
- **Spanish:** Maorí cola de escoba, Vieja escobera
- **Portuguese:** Bodião-cauda-de-escova
- **Dutch:** Bezemstaartlipvis
- **Czech:** pyskoun střapcový
- **Chinese:** 雀尾唇魚
- **Russian:** Перистохвостый хейлин
- **DA:** Kostehalet gylte
- **FA:** زمردماهی دمجارویی, Zomorrod-mahi-e-domjaroobi

## Scientific synonyms

- *Labrus lunulatus* Forsskål, 1775

## Range

Djibouti, Eritrea, Federal Republic of Somalia, Red Sea, Seychelles

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/wrasse/broomtail-wrasse)*
*Updated: August 14, 2026*