Wrasse With Class!

Sneaky, cockerel and cryptic — meet a group of small, colourful wrasse and discover why it’s not just their names that make them interesting!

- Tristan Lougher

Wrasse are well represented in the marine hobby. Think of the controversial yet popular Cleaner wrasse, Labroides dimidiatus or the several beautiful members of the genus Halichoeres that make their way into the trade on a regular basis and you are still only scratching the surface of what this family has to offer.

To date the family Labridae has 82 genera that are home to in excess of 600 species and this number is increasing all the time as new species are identified and described.

Although the marine hobby is resplendent with colourful and beautiful species of wrasse there will always be a desire amongst certain aquarists for something a bit different. So how do we define different? It may be a species only occasionally imported from a remote part of the world or something usually found at depths out of the range of most fish collectors. Then there are those species that are not often seen for sale even though they originate from some of the hotbeds of collection for the marine aquarium hobby, perhaps because they are thought to have limited commercial value or just aren’t particularly common, even in their natural ranges.

Secretive species

There is a genus of wrasse that fits into this last group; one we don’t see very often in the hobby and, when it is spotted, it is often mistaken for some of its more destructive cousins, meaning that a fish that can make a superb addition to medium-large aquaria is ignored. Add to the mix that these fish have some of the best common names in the hobby and it soon becomes apparent that aquarists are missing out on a lot by not embracing the secretive Pteragogus wrasse.