---
title: Dark Side Wrasse (Halichoeres iridis)
scientific_name: Halichoeres iridis
common_name: Dark Side Wrasse
taxon: Wrasse
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-10-28T18:11:49.834Z
updated: 2026-08-20T08:19:18.776Z
tags: Dark Side Wrasse, Halichoeres iridis, Wrasse, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/wrasse/dark-side-wrasse
---

# Dark Side Wrasse (*Halichoeres iridis*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Wrasse (*Labridae*)
- **Size:** 11.5 cm
- **Depth:** 6-43 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Rubble and sand on deeper slopes
- **Reproduction:** Protogynous hermaphrodite
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- orange-red front half shading abruptly to dark on the rear body
- small size, under twelve centimeters
- over rubble on slopes below fifteen meters rather than on shallow flats
- up to 11.5 cm

Its genus is a shallow-water genus. Halichoeres wrasses are the small striped fish that work rubble in the top ten meters, dive into the sand when frightened, and sleep buried; there are dozens of them and they are among the first fish anyone learns.

This one went down. It lives on slopes from about six meters to over forty, is more common in the deeper half of that, and is built accordingly: smaller, plainer at the back end, and far less inclined to cross open ground.

What happens on a slope is that everything gets thinner. Less light, less algae, fewer of the small crustaceans that a rubble wrasse eats, and a longer distance between good patches. A fish moving into that band trades abundance for having it to itself, and species that make the move usually end up smaller than their shallow relatives.

The name is about the color break: an orange-red front half that turns abruptly dark behind, which on a small fish in deep blue light reads as half a fish.

## Also known as

- **English:** Rainbow Wrasse
- **German:** Gelbkopf-Junker
- **Portuguese:** Bodião-de-cabeça-dourada

## Range

Indian Ocean, Madagascar, Republic of Mauritius, Seychelles, South Africa

---

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