The unicornfish that actually looks like one. The horn on an adult grows forward past the mouth, longer than the snout itself, and gives the fish a profile nothing else on the reef has. Young fish are hornless and plain, and the horn appears with size.
It is also the one that leaves the reef. Where the other unicornfishes graze the bottom, this species spends much of its time up in the water column, taking drifting algae and plankton in midwater - a herbivore that feeds like a planktivore, which is why the schools hang above the slope rather than on it.
The tail carries the same two fixed blades on each side, and they cut. Nothing about the fish is aggressive, but a netted one is a hazard.
It reaches 60 cm (24 in) and lives a long time. Large fish in parts of its range carry ciguatoxins, which is the reason for the flag rather than anything that happens underwater.
long forward-pointing horn in adults, longer than the snout
bluish-gray body with fine dark lines on the head and body
two fixed blades on each side of the tail base
often high in the water column rather than on the reef
length up to 60 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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