An eastern Pacific wrasse, green with a pale head band in the adult male, moving constantly over rock.
To about 32 cm. The initial phase is greenish-yellow with faint light red bands on the head. Terminal males are greenish to blue with a pinkish head carrying narrow greenish bands across the cheek and radiating from the eye, and the tail becomes strongly concave with the lobe tips drawn out. Juveniles are greenish-brown above and white below with a black lateral stripe that breaks into spots towards the rear.
The Cortez rainbow wrasse shares all these islands and has a broad yellow bar behind the head, which this fish does not. At Revillagigedo also rule out the emerald wrasse, whose initial phase has red-brown spots on the scale centres.
Three to forty metres on coral and rock exposed to surge, usually alone, moving long distances to feed on hard-shelled invertebrates. It is most abundant at the offshore islands.
FishBase applies the name “sunset wrasse” to Thalassoma lutescens instead. This site follows STRI, which uses it for this fish, and calls the other one the yellow-brown wrasse.
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.