---
title: Moon Wrasse (Thalassoma lunare)
scientific_name: Thalassoma lunare
common_name: Moon Wrasse
taxon: Wrasse
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-10-28T19:24:49.555Z
updated: 2026-08-14T10:00:46.809Z
tags: Moon Wrasse, Thalassoma lunare, Wrasse, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/wrasse/moon-wrasse
---

# Moon Wrasse (*Thalassoma lunare*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Wrasse (*Labridae*)
- **Size:** up to 45 cm
- **Depth:** 1-20 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Shallow reef, lagoons and rubble, everywhere
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Protogynous hermaphrodite
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- green body with magenta bands across each scale, giving a netted look
- yellow crescent moon on the tail, brighter in large males
- magenta band through the pectoral fin base
- length up to 45 cm

Green and magenta, with a yellow crescent moon on the tail that gives it the name, and the least shy fish on the reef. Moon wrasses follow divers, inspect cameras, and hang around anything being disturbed, because disturbance means food.

Big terminal males are aggressive to a degree that is unusual for a wrasse. They hold territories, chase off other males, harass smaller fish, and are quite willing to attack prey nearly their own size - moon wrasses have been recorded taking small fish, eggs and juveniles of other species with a persistence that makes them a problem in aquariums.

They are also opportunists at spawning aggregations of other species, arriving in numbers to eat the eggs while the spawners are occupied.

Like other wrasses this one starts female and changes to male, and the change comes with a complete color rework. Forty-five centimeters (18 in) at the extreme; most fish are half that.

## Also known as

- **English:** moon wrasse, Crescent Wrasse, Blue wrasse
- **French:** Girelle paon, Girelle verte, Kakatoi lézard
- **Spanish:** Doncella verde
- **Portuguese:** Peixe-verde lunar
- **Japanese:** オトメベラ, Otomebera
- **Chinese:** 新月錦魚

## Scientific synonyms

- *Julis lunaris* (Linnaeus, 1758)
- *Julis trimaculatus* Rüppell, 1835
- *Labrus lunaris* Linnaeus, 1758
- *Thalassoma lunaris* (Linnaeus, 1758)
- *Thallasoma lunare* (Linnaeus, 1758)

## Range

Djibouti, Federal Republic of Somalia, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, New Zealand, Red Sea, Republic of Mauritius, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania

---

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