---
title: Dusky Wrasse (Halichoeres marginatus)
scientific_name: Halichoeres marginatus
common_name: Dusky Wrasse
taxon: Wrasse
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-10-28T17:44:28.536Z
updated: 2026-08-19T15:33:48.534Z
tags: Dusky Wrasse, Halichoeres marginatus, Wrasse, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/wrasse/dusky-wrasse
---

# Dusky Wrasse (*Halichoeres marginatus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Wrasse (*Labridae*)
- **Size:** up to 18 cm
- **Depth:** 0-30 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Shallow rocky reef and rubble, often in surge
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Protogynous hermaphrodite
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- males dark green with a vertical pale bar behind the pectoral fin
- bright orange spot ringed in blue at the top of the gill cover
- juveniles with a black eyespot on the dorsal fin
- length up to 18 cm

A dark green wrasse of shallow rocky reef, with an orange spot ringed in blue high on the gill cover and a pale bar down the flank. Eighteen centimeters (7 in), and constantly busy in water too shallow for most divers to bother with.

Juveniles carry a black eyespot on the dorsal fin - a false eye at the wrong end of the animal, so a predator aiming for the head takes a mouthful of fin and the fish leaves in the other direction. It is one of the most common defenses on a reef and one of the least noticed.

Adults hunt small crustaceans, worms and brittle stars across rock and rubble, and males hold territories they patrol all day.

Like the rest of the family it starts female. A large green male with the bar and the orange spot was, at some point, one of the plain brown fish it now chases off.

## Also known as

- **English:** splendid rainbow wrasse, Dusky Wrasse, Red Sea Dusky Wrasse
- **Arabic:** سماك قوس قزح المرقط
- **French:** Labre obscur de mer Rouge, Girelle arc-en-ciel, Labre bordé
- **Italian:** Labro scuro
- **German:** Prachtregenbogenlippfisch
- **Portuguese:** Bodião-sombrio
- **Czech:** kněžík temný
- **Japanese:** Kanokobera, カノコベラ
- **Chinese:** 白雪儒艮鯛, 綠鰭儒艮鯛, 緣鰭海豬魚
- **FIJ:** drividrivi
- **TAH:** po'ou
- **TGL:** Isdang bato, Bankilan, Bunak

## Scientific synonyms

- *Halichoeres ianthinus* Fourmanoir, 1955
- *Halichoeres lamarii* (Valenciennes, 1839)
- *Halichoeres notopsis* (Valenciennes, 1839)
- *Halichoeres virescens* Fourmanoir & Guézé, 1961
- *Julis lamarii* Valenciennes, 1839
- *Julis notopsis* Valenciennes, 1839

## Range

Federal Republic of Somalia, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Mozambique, Red Sea, Republic of Mauritius, Seychelles

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/wrasse/dusky-wrasse)*
*Updated: August 19, 2026*