Queen Triggerfish

The queen triggerfish is one of the larger and most colourful triggerfishes of the tropical Atlantic, a powerful-jawed reef fish known for the electric blue rays around its mouth and for flipping sea urchins over to attack them from underneath.

It lives singly or in schools over coral reefs and rocky bottoms, and now and then over sand and seagrass. It usually stays above 30m, although it has been found as deep as 275m. In the west it ranges from Massachusetts to Brazil and is commonest around Florida, the Bahamas and the Caribbean, which is where divers are most likely to meet it. In the east it occurs from the Azores to southern Angola.

Appearance

It often reaches 45cm, and females tend to be larger than males. The body is steel grey to olive green, with orange below the mouth and around the pectoral fin. Electric blue rays surround the mouth, dark blue lines radiate from the eyes, and a blue line finishes the tail. Those colours separate it easily from the grey and ocean triggerfish, large relatives that share parts of its range. Juveniles look much the same but duller, and any fish can adjust its colour a little to match its surroundings or when stressed.

Behaviour

Usually shy, it tends to swim away from divers, though a curious one may circle them. Like other triggerfishes it has a dorsal spine that locks upright, and it uses this to wedge itself into a crevice when resting or escaping a predator.

Feeding

Sea urchins, crabs and chitons are the main prey, with shrimps, snails, bivalves, small fish and brittle stars taken now and then. Tough prey is bitten over and over with sharp incisors to crack it or free it from the reef, and may be spat out and taken again to reposition it or discard hard parts. Quick prey is simply sucked in. All this turning of rocks and stirring of sand draws smaller fish in to pick up the scraps.

Life cycle

Breeding goes on all year, often at a particular spawning ground that the fish migrate to. A shallow pit is dug in the sand with the fin and the eggs are laid inside, then fiercely guarded by the parents. The larvae that hatch are often carried off by currents.

Males mature at about 2.7 years and females at about 4. How long the fish live is still argued over: estimates run from 7 years in an early study to 14 in a later one and as much as 40 from radiocarbon analysis.

Dangers

Eggs change its temperament completely. A fish guarding a nest turns aggressive and territorial, and a harassed parent can give a diver a nasty bite. The flesh may also carry ciguatoxin.

Threats

Larger reef fish such as jacks, groupers and sharks are its main predators, and it carries many parasites, including copepods, isopods, leeches, tapeworms, flukes and nematodes. Populations in United States waters and the Caribbean are broadly healthy, but those off Brazil and in the Gulf of Guinea have fallen by more than 90% since the 1980s through overfishing.

Relationship with people

For many Latin American communities around the Caribbean this is a staple food fish, usually taken by hook and line or in fish traps, and it also comes up on commercial longlines by accident. Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands protect its breeding grounds as no-take zones.

The second half of its scientific name, Balistes vetula, means old woman, which matches the Spanish name vieja used in Cuba. An old explanation for the English name old wife fish points to the look of its mouth from the front and the soft murmur it makes when first caught.

Its colours also earn it a place in aquariums, though it is too big and territorial for most home tanks.