---
title: Klunzinger's Wrasse (Thalassoma rueppellii)
scientific_name: Thalassoma rueppellii
common_name: Klunzinger's Wrasse
taxon: Wrasse
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-01-01T01:01:35.933Z
updated: 2026-08-14T09:54:26.559Z
tags: Klunzinger's Wrasse, Thalassoma rueppellii, Wrasse, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/wrasse/klunzingers-wrasse
---

# Klunzinger's Wrasse (*Thalassoma rueppellii*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Wrasse (*Labridae*)
- **Size:** up to 20 cm
- **Depth:** 0-20 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Shallow reef tops and surge zones
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Protogynous hermaphrodite
- **Endemic:** Endemic to the Red Sea
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- green body with fine magenta lines running back from the eye across the head
- magenta-edged tail and fins
- constantly on the move over shallow reef, never still
- length up to 20 cm

Green with magenta scribbles across the face, never holding still for a second, and found in this sea and nowhere else. It is one of the most abundant fish on any Red Sea reef top and one of the hardest to photograph, for the same reason: it does not stop.

The restlessness is how it feeds. It works the shallows in fast loops, taking small crustaceans, snails and worms, and it follows larger fish around to snatch whatever they dislodge - a broomtail wrasse turning stones usually has two or three of these in attendance.

It is also a part-time cleaner. Young fish pick parasites off larger species, and adults still do it opportunistically, which is unusual for a wrasse that is not a specialist cleaner.

Twenty centimeters (8 in) of endemic fish that most visitors ignore because it is everywhere. Worth a second look: outside this sea, nobody has one.

## Also known as

- **English:** Rueppell’s Wrasse, Klunzinger's wrasse
- **Arabic:** Muesy
- **Hebrew:** טווסון אילתי
- **French:** Girelle-paon de mer Rouge
- **Italian:** Labro del Mar Rosso
- **German:** Rotmeer-Junker
- **Spanish:** Señorita de Klunzinger
- **Portuguese:** Bodião-de-Klunzinger
- **Dutch:** Klunzingerslipvis
- **Czech:** kněžík Rüppelův
- **Russian:** Талассома Клунцингера

## Scientific synonyms

- *Julis rueppellii* Klunzinger, 1871
- *Julis ruppelli* Klunzinger, 1871
- *Thalassoma klunzingeri* Fowler & Steinitz, 1956
- *Thalassoma kluzingeri* Fowler & Steinitz, 1956

---

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