---
title: Cutribbon Wrasse (Stethojulis interrupta)
scientific_name: Stethojulis interrupta
common_name: Cutribbon Wrasse
taxon: Wrasse
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-10-28T18:59:15.065Z
updated: 2026-08-20T13:29:58.483Z
tags: Cutribbon Wrasse, Stethojulis interrupta, Wrasse, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/wrasse/cutribbon-wrasse
---

# Cutribbon Wrasse (*Stethojulis interrupta*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Wrasse (*Labridae*)
- **Size:** up to 15 cm
- **Depth:** 1-20 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Shallow reef flats and rubble
- **Reproduction:** Protogynous hermaphrodite
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- males with a blue line along the side that breaks off partway down the body
- females plain brown with fine white speckling
- never stops moving, working shallow rubble in fast loops
- up to 15 cm

The line stops halfway, and the name is about that break.

A continuous stripe along a fish is a formation signal, useful for holding position in a school. A broken one does something else. On an animal moving fast, high-contrast markings that start and stop make it hard for an eye to track speed and direction accurately: the edges give a pursuing predator conflicting information about where the fish is and how quickly it is going, and a strike computed on bad information lands behind. Zebras are the famous example and small fast reef fish are the underwater version.

This is a fish that never stops. It works shallow rubble in continuous fast loops, feeding as it goes, and getting a photograph is a matter of prefocusing on a patch and waiting for it to cross rather than following it.

Males carry the blue line and a good deal of color; females are plain brown with fine speckles, and the two are logged as different species regularly.

## Also known as

- **English:** cutribbon wrasse, Cut-ribbon Wrasse, Broken-lined Wrasse
- **French:** Labre-ruban interrompu
- **Portuguese:** Bodião-de-listra-cortada
- **Czech:** kněžík světlý
- **Japanese:** Kaminaribera
- **Chinese:** 断带紫胸鱼, 斷線紫胸魚
- **TGL:** Mameng
- **TH:** ปลานกขุนทองเส้นเดียว

## Scientific synonyms

- *Julis interruptus* Bleeker, 1851
- *Julis kallasoma* Bleeker, 1852
- *Julis kalosoma* Bleeker, 1852
- *Stethojulis kallosoma* (Bleeker, 1852)
- *Stethojulis kalosoma* (Bleeker, 1852)
- *Stethojulis zatima* Jordan & Seale, 1905
- *Stetholulis interrupta* (Bleeker, 1851)

## Range

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

---

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