A tang that unfolds. At rest it is a tall dark fish with pale bars; threatened, it raises a dorsal and an anal fin so large that the outline becomes a disc nearly twice its resting height, and whatever was thinking about eating it has to reconsider the size of the mouthful.
The display is aimed at predators and at other tangs, and a pair squaring up over a patch of algae will hold their fins fully spread and circle for a minute at a time.
This is the 🌊 Indian Ocean and 🌊 Red Sea species; the Pacific has a near-twin, and the two hybridize where their ranges meet in 🇮🇩 Indonesia. Ours is the one with the more broken, spotted head pattern.
It grazes leafy algae on reef and lagoon, and it works alone or in pairs rather than in mobs. Juveniles are bright yellow with bold bars and live in shallow rubble, looking so unlike the adult that they were once described separately.
The genus.Zebrasoma Swainson 1839 - soma (body). ETYFish
The species.Zebrasoma desjardinii (Bennett 1836) - Honours French zoologist Julien François Desjardins. ETYFish
How to recognise it
enormous dorsal and anal fins that raise the fish into a near-circle
dark body with pale vertical bars breaking into spots on the head
juveniles bright yellow with bold bars
length up to 40 cm
Why it's threatened
There are no major threats known for this species.
Surgeonfishes show varying degrees of habitat preference and utilization of coral reef habitats, with some species spending the majority of their life stages on coral reef while others primarily utilize seagrass beds, mangroves, algal beds, and /or rocky reefs. The majority of surgeonfishes are exclusively found on coral reef habitat, and of these, approximately 80% are experiencing a greater than 30% loss of coral reef area and degradation of coral reef habitat quality across their distributions. However, more research is needed to understand the long-term effects of coral reef habitat loss and degradation on these species' populations. Widespread coral reef loss and declining habitat conditions are particularly worrying for species that recruit into areas with live coral cover, especially as studies have shown that protection of pristine habitats facilitate the persistence of adult populations in species that have spatially separated adult and juvenile habitats (Comeros-Raynal et al. 2012).
Threat classification from the IUCN Red List.
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