---
title: Spot-tail Wrasse (Coris caudimacula)
scientific_name: Coris caudimacula
common_name: Spot-tail Wrasse
taxon: Wrasse
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-01-01T20:31:53.782Z
updated: 2026-08-20T11:58:49.322Z
tags: Spot-tail Wrasse, Coris caudimacula, Wrasse, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/wrasse/spot-tail-wrasse
---

# Spot-tail Wrasse (*Coris caudimacula*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Wrasse (*Labridae*)
- **Size:** 20 cm
- **Depth:** 1-57 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Sand and rubble beside reef
- **Reproduction:** Protogynous hermaphrodite
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- olive body with a dark spot on the tail base
- females with brown stripes above, males greener with pink face lines
- works sand at a steady trot, turning small stones
- up to 20 cm

It sleeps underground. At dusk this wrasse goes down into open sand headfirst, works itself under, and stays there until morning, and a patch of bottom that carried a dozen busy fish in the afternoon has none at all after dark.

That is a completely different solution from the one most reef fish use. The great majority wedge into a hole in the coral at night and rely on structure. A sand-sleeper needs no structure at all, which means it can live on open bottom where there is nothing to hide in, and it is invisible to every nocturnal predator that hunts by working over the reef.

The cost is that it has to get in and out. Coming up in the morning is the moment of maximum exposure, and it is done fast.

By day it works sand and rubble at a steady trot, turning over small stones and taking what is underneath, and it is one of the more visible fish on mixed bottom here. Males and females look different enough that they are regularly logged as two species.

## Also known as

- **English:** spottail coris, Tailspot Wrasse, Spotted Tail Wrasse
- **Arabic:** Muesy
- **Hebrew:** יולִית הכתם, יולית הכתם
- **French:** Girelle à Tache Caudale
- **German:** Schwanzfleck-Junker
- **Spanish:** Coris de Cola Moteada
- **Portuguese:** Bodião-de-cauda-ocelada
- **Polish:** Korys dwuplamy
- **Czech:** kněžík skvrnoocasý
- **Chinese:** 尾斑盔魚, 尾斑鸚鯛, 柳冷仔
- **Russian:** Пятнистохвостый корис

## Scientific synonyms

- *Coris multicolor* (Rüppell, 1835)
- *Halichoeres multicolor* Rüppell, 1835
- *Julis caudimacula* Quoy & Gaimard, 1834

## Range

Comoros, East Africa, Federal Republic of Somalia, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Red Sea, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania

---

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