---
title: Seagrass Wrasse (Novaculoides macrolepidotus)
scientific_name: Novaculoides macrolepidotus
common_name: Seagrass Wrasse
taxon: Wrasse
published: 2024-10-28T19:45:27.034Z
updated: 2026-08-20T12:10:59.089Z
tags: Seagrass Wrasse, Novaculoides macrolepidotus, Wrasse, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/wrasse/seagrass-wrasse
---

# Seagrass Wrasse (*Novaculoides macrolepidotus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Wrasse (*Labridae*)
- **Size:** up to 16 cm
- **Depth:** 3-25 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Seagrass beds and weedy sand
- **Reproduction:** Protogynous hermaphrodite

## How to recognise it

- compressed body with a steep, knife-edged head profile
- green to brown, matching seagrass
- swims slowly among blades, then vanishes into the sand
- up to 16 cm

The head is a blade, and that is what makes the disappearing act possible.

Razorfishes and their relatives dive into open sand to escape, and doing it takes more than nerve. The body is strongly compressed side to side, and the front of the head is drawn into a steep vertical edge with the mouth at the bottom, so the fish presents a knife to the sediment rather than a face. It swims at the bottom at speed, the edge parts the sand, and the whole animal is under in well under a second, leaving no visible hole.

Underneath, it keeps going. These fish move horizontally through loose sand for a meter or more before stopping, so a predator that marks the entry point and digs there finds nothing.

This species lives in seagrass rather than open sand, green to brown to match the blades, moving slowly among them. It is the only member of its genus, and it is easy to miss right up until it is not there anymore.

## Also known as

- **English:** seagrass wrasse, Seagrass Razorfish
- **French:** Labre des herbiers
- **Portuguese:** Bodião-mimico
- **Czech:** pyskoun travní
- **Japanese:** オオヒレテンスモドキ, Ohiretensumodoki
- **Chinese:** 大鱗似美鰭魚, 大鱗鸚鯛, 娘仔魚
- **TGL:** Isdang bato, Bankilan, Bungat

## Scientific synonyms

- *Julis taenianotus* Quoy & Gaimard, 1824
- *Julis trimaculata* Valenciennes, 1839
- *Labrus arago* Quoy & Gaimard, 1824
- *Labrus macrolepidotus* Bloch, 1791
- *Novacula julioides* Bleeker, 1851
- *Novaculichthys macrolepidotus* (Bloch, 1791)

---

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