Eight-lined wrasse
The eight-lined wrasse (Pseudocheilinus octotaenia) is a small marine fish from the wrasse family. It lives in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, mainly around coral reefs.
Habitat and behavior: It stays near the bottom among rubble, live corals, and crevices, at depths of about 2 to 50 meters. It is a solitary, daytime hunter and sleeps in a mucus cocoon inside a cavity at night to help hide its scent from predators.
Appearance: It is reddish to yellowish with about eight thin purplish stripes along its sides; the top three stripes extend onto the head. Small yellow spots appear on the cheek and gill cover, and some fish have larger yellow markings. It grows to about 14 cm long.
Diet: It eats mainly benthic crustaceans, plus small molluscs, sea urchins, fish eggs, and crab larvae.
Distribution: It has an Indo-West Pacific range, from the Comoros and Seychelles in the western Indian Ocean to Hawaii and Ducie Island, north to the Yaeyama Islands in Japan, and south to New Caledonia.
Conservation and aquarium trade: It is listed as Least Concern. It can be found in the aquarium trade but is not commonly collected, and it has not been bred in captivity.
Taxonomy: It was first described by Oliver P. Jenkins in 1901, with Honolulu, Hawaii as the type locality.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 23:43 (CET).