The largest fish family on a reef and the one that changes most between juvenile, female and terminal male. Almost all of them start as females and some become males later, which is why a single species can look like three.
The colour changes are the whole difficulty of the group. A cleaner wrasse juvenile, an initial-phase female and a terminal male are often illustrated as separate fish in a guide, and the entries here say which phase they are describing where it matters. Terminal males hold territory and are the brightest; the drab fish in a group is usually the one that has not changed yet.
Behaviour separates them where colour does not. The cleaners work a fixed station and other fish queue for them. The razorfish dive head first into open sand and come up several metres away. The rockmover turns stones over, and other fish follow it to take what it uncovers. The blue gropers of southern Australia follow divers closely for the same reason.
Most of the group sleeps buried in sand or wedged in a crevice, which is why a reef busy with wrasses by day is empty of them on a night dive.
Every one has a page. They are shown as a list rather than as pictures because nothing has been photographed or logged for them yet, and a species with nothing behind it should not sit in front of one that has.
How many of the 56 carry a record at each destination. A species usually carries several, so these do not add up to 56.
All 1316 species in one index, with filters for destination, rarity and hazard.
