---
title: Red-breasted Wrasse (Cheilinus quinquecinctus)
scientific_name: Cheilinus quinquecinctus
common_name: Red-breasted Wrasse
taxon: Wrasse
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2023-12-30T23:21:27.672Z
updated: 2026-08-19T15:44:53.694Z
tags: Red-breasted Wrasse, Cheilinus quinquecinctus, Wrasse, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/wrasse/red-breasted-wrasse
---

# Red-breasted Wrasse (*Cheilinus quinquecinctus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Wrasse (*Labridae*)
- **Size:** up to 35 cm
- **Depth:** 2-40 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Coral-rich reef and rubble
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Protogynous hermaphrodite
- **Endemic:** Endemic to the Red Sea
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- five dark bars across the body, clearest in young fish
- males with a deep red-orange chest and throat
- thick lips and a steep forehead
- length up to 35 cm

A stocky barred wrasse with a red chest, endemic to this sea and the Gulf of Aden. It shares both the reef and the general build with the Abudjubbe Wrasse, and the two are the pair worth learning together: this one carries five dark bars and a red-orange breast, the other a purple-red throat and no bars.

It hunts hard-shelled prey across rubble - crabs, molluscs, urchins - and the heavy lips are a working part of that, used to grip and pull rather than to bite. Like its relatives it will pick up a stone in its mouth and drop it somewhere else to get at what is underneath.

Males hold territory over several females and turn on the red when another male comes into view.

Thirty-five centimeters (14 in). Its name has moved around - it was long lumped with a wide-ranging Indian Ocean species before the Red Sea population was recognized as its own - which is why older books here call it something else.

## Also known as

- **English:** Whitebarred Wrasse, Red Sea Redbreasted Wrasse, Redbreasted Wrasse
- **German:** Rotbrust-Lippfisch
- **Spanish:** Maorí de Pecho rojo
- **Portuguese:** Bodião-de-peito-vermelho
- **Russian:** Красногрудый хейлин

## Scientific synonyms

- *Concholabrus quinquecinctus* (Rüppell, 1835)

---

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