---
title: Slingjaw Wrasse (Epibulus insidiator)
scientific_name: Epibulus insidiator
common_name: Slingjaw Wrasse
taxon: Wrasse
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2023-12-30T19:29:17.764Z
updated: 2026-08-19T23:08:26.656Z
tags: Slingjaw Wrasse, Epibulus insidiator, Wrasse, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/wrasse/slingjaw-wrasse
---

# Slingjaw Wrasse (*Epibulus insidiator*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Wrasse (*Labridae*)
- **Size:** up to 54 cm
- **Depth:** 1-50 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Coral-rich reef, working slowly among branching colonies
- **Reproduction:** Protogynous hermaphrodite
- **Hazard:** Poisonous
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- long pointed snout that shoots forward into a tube when it feeds
- adults yellow, brown or dark gray with pale head and dark bars behind the eye
- moves slowly and deliberately, close to coral
- up to 54 cm

It has the most extreme jaw in any reef fish, and it is worth waiting to see it work.

The entire front of the head shoots forward. Bones that in other fish are short and hinged are stretched into long struts here, folded away under the cheek, and when the fish strikes they swing out and the mouth becomes a tube extending up to half the length of the body. From the outside it looks as though the animal has fired a telescope at something.

What it buys is reach and suction. A shrimp sitting a hand's width inside a coral branch is safe from almost everything, because a predator has to get its head in there. This one does not: it hangs outside, aims, and the mouth arrives on its own, with the water rushing in behind it. The strike takes a fraction of a second and the prey does not get a decision.

The rest of the animal is built around the delivery: slow, deliberate, unhurried, working the coral at a pace that lets it get into position. A slingjaw that has spotted something moves like it has all afternoon, because it does.

## Also known as

- **English:** sling-jaw wrasse, Slingjaw Wrasse, longjawed wrasse
- **French:** Labre insidieux, Labre traître, Épibule gourami
- **Italian:** Labride boccalunga, Labro boccalunga, Tordo boccalunga
- **German:** Stülpmaul-Lippfisch
- **Spanish:** Napoleón Bocón, Vieja guramí
- **Portuguese:** Bodião-estilingue, Gurami
- **Dutch:** Grijpsnuitlipvis
- **Czech:** pyskoun trubkotlamý
- **Japanese:** ギチベラ, Gichibera
- **Chinese:** 伸口魚, 伸口鱼, 闊嘴郎
- **Russian:** Большеротый губан
- **DA:** Rørmundet gylte
- **DIV:** Hikaa
- **SW:** Pono
- **TAH:** papae utu roa
- **TGL:** Isdang bato, Bankilan, Bunak
- **TH:** ปลานกขุนทองปากยื่น

## Scientific synonyms

- *Epibulis insidiator* (Pallas, 1770)
- *Epibulus insidiator var. flava* Bleeker, 1849
- *Epibulus insidiator var. fusca* Bleeker, 1849
- *Epibulus striatus* Day, 1871
- *Sparus insidiator* Pallas, 1770

## Range

Djibouti, Federal Republic of Somalia, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Red Sea, Republic of Mauritius, Seychelles

---

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