Oriental Maori Wrasse

The Oriental Maori Wrasse (Oxycheilinus orientalis) is a small, slender reef fish whose orange-red colour can shift quickly, a cryptic relative of the giant Humphead Maori Wrasse (Cheilinus undulatus) that often hides in the arms of mushroom coral. Despite the shared name it reaches only 15 to 20cm.

It lives singly or in small groups over sandy, rubble and algae-rich areas of sheltered bays, lagoons and outer reef slopes, often among the arms of the mushroom coral Heliofungia actiniformis. It ranges through the tropical Indo-West Pacific, from the Red Sea to northern Australia and the Great Barrier Reef, north to southern Japan and east to the Marshall Islands. At 10 to 80m it keeps to fairly deep water, so divers are more likely to meet it on the deeper parts of a slope.

Appearance

The body is orange-red to reddish pink. A dark reddish stripe runs along the middle of the body from the snout through the eye to the base of the tail, with a pale white stripe either side. Two small black and red spots sit towards the rear, and the white pelvic and anal fins have bright red markings. Females also have about five pale saddle-like bars over the back that reach down the sides.

Behaviour

Males tend to be solitary and territorial, while females often swim in small groups. Wrasses in general are busy all day but first to bed and last to rise, with small ones sleeping under the sand and larger ones wedged into crevices.

Feeding

It is an opportunistic predator of small fish, shrimps and other crustaceans living near the bottom. Wrasses as a group have small protruding teeth for taking food from the bottom, and grind down hard shells with a second set of jaws in the throat.

Life cycle

Like other wrasses it changes dramatically in colour and shape from juvenile to adult. Young fish are highly cryptic, sheltering among soft corals or feather stars. Adults begin mature life as females, and some can later become males.