Blue-green with a yellow band along the flank in the terminal male, and three dark stripes in the initial phase.
To 35 cm, commonly 22. Initial-phase fish and juveniles are dark olive above with two broad dark stripes on a white ground: the upper one runs from the snout through the eye to the middle of the tail base, the lower from the chin through the pectoral base to the lower tail base. Terminal-phase males are blue-green with a broad orange or yellow band along the upper flank, blue and orange bands on the head, and blue-edged tail lobes forming a crescent.
The striped parrotfish is the hardest pair on the Caribbean reef and this needs saying plainly: separating the two in initial phase is difficult. In this species the snout stripes are clean and the area below the lowest stripe is pale and unmarked; the striped parrotfish has a yellowish snout, a third fainter stripe and a more mottled belly. In terminal phase the strong orange upper-flank band identifies this one.
It grazes algae off hard bottom in shallow water between 2 and 25 m, often in mixed feeding groups with other parrotfish and surgeonfish. Females change sex to male.
Ratings are per location: 1 means found on most dives that look for it, 5 means a handful of records. Where enough dives have been logged the figure is calculated from them; otherwise it is an editorial estimate, and says so. We publish habitat and destination, not the dive site.