Yellow, with four blue stripes edged in black, hanging in a school that does not appear to be doing anything. Those standing schools beside a coral head or a wreck are the fish's daytime state, and they can hold the same position for years.
The work happens after dark. The school breaks up at dusk and the fish spread onto sand and seagrass to hunt small fish and crustaceans, returning to the same structure before dawn - so a snapper school is not a feeding aggregation but a dormitory with a view.
That habit made it a case study in what not to do. Hawaii (🇺🇸 United States) introduced this species in the 1950s to build a fishery; the fish spread across the whole archipelago, the fishery never materialized because nobody wanted to eat it, and it now competes with native species on reefs that never had it. It is the standard example of a well-intentioned marine introduction going wrong.
Here it belongs, and a good school is one of the easier photographs on the reef: the fish tolerate a slow approach and reform behind a diver who passes through them.
The species. Lutjanus kasmira (Forsskål 1775) - from Kasjmiri. ETYFish
- bright yellow fish with four horizontal blue stripes edged in black
- pale belly, sometimes with faint gray lines below the blue ones
- hangs in a motionless school beside a coral head or a wreck all day
- length up to 40 cm
Why it's threatened
This species is caught mainly with handlines, traps, and gill nets. Considered one of the principal species in the Hawaiian offshore handline fishery, but commands a relatively low price (Anderson and Allen 2001).
Threat classification from the IUCN Red List.
