---
title: Sixbar Thicklip Wrasse (Hemigymnus sexfasciatus)
scientific_name: Hemigymnus sexfasciatus
common_name: Sixbar Thicklip Wrasse
taxon: Wrasse
conservation_status: DD - Data Deficient
published: 2024-10-28T17:14:55.246Z
updated: 2026-08-20T14:59:21.364Z
tags: Sixbar Thicklip Wrasse, Hemigymnus sexfasciatus, Wrasse, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/wrasse/sixbar-thicklip-wrasse
---

# Sixbar Thicklip Wrasse (*Hemigymnus sexfasciatus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Wrasse (*Labridae*)
- **Size:** 50 cm
- **Depth:** 1-20 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Shallow reef, rubble and sand
- **Reproduction:** Protogynous hermaphrodite
- **Endemic:** Endemic to the Red Sea
- **Conservation status:** DD - Data Deficient

## How to recognise it

- six dark bars down the body, strongest in juveniles and young adults
- very thick fleshy lips
- large, to half a meter, and heavy-bodied
- up to 50 cm

Two thicklip wrasses live on this coast and only one of them is ours.

The blackeye thicklip is spread across the Indo-Pacific. This one is a Red Sea endemic, produced by the same isolation that gave this basin its damselfish, its butterflyfish and its anemonefish, and it does the same job the other one does: takes a whole mouthful of sand and rubble, sorts the animals out inside the mouth with those enormous lips sealing the load in, and blows the sediment out through the gills.

Where two close relatives share a coast, something usually separates them, and here it is mostly depth and exposure - the endemic works shallower and more sheltered ground. Two species that feed identically cannot occupy identical space for long.

At half a meter it is a big fish and a conspicuous one, barred with six dark bands that are boldest on young animals and fade as they grow. Big males lose most of the pattern and turn a heavy blue-green, which is why the largest individuals are regularly logged as something else entirely.

## Also known as

- **English:** Red Sea Thicklip Wrasse, Fiveband Wrasse
- **Hebrew:** עב-שפה בהיר-ראש
- **French:** Tamarin de Mer Rouge
- **German:** Rotmeer-Bannerlippfisch
- **Portuguese:** Bodião-beiçudo-do-Mar-Vermelho

## Scientific synonyms

- *Halichoeres sexfasciatus* Rüppell, 1835
- *Halichöeres sexfasciatus* Rüppell, 1835

---

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