Bumphead parrotfish
Fish · Last reviewed 2026-08-25
The largest parrotfish in the world — 130 centimetres, 46 kilos, and Vulnerable largely because it sleeps in shallow water where anybody with a torch can find it.
Safety: fish welfare — can cause serious injury or death.
A bumphead parrotfish eats coral. Not algae off coral — coral, live and dead, crushed with a fused beak and heavy pharyngeal mill, so that a single large adult processes several tonnes of reef a year and excretes it as sand. The reefs of the Indo-Pacific are partly the product of this animal's digestion.
It is enormous for a parrotfish: FishBase records 130 cm and 46 kg. Adults are blue-green with a squared-off, near-vertical forehead carrying a heavy bony bump, and they move over the reef in schools, from the surface to about 40 m, from the Red Sea and East Africa to Samoa and the Line Islands, north to the Yaeyamas and Wake, south to the Great Barrier Reef and New Caledonia.
The IUCN assesses it as VULNERABLE under criterion A2bcd, and the mechanism is worth stating plainly because it is unusually specific. Bumpheads sleep at night in shallow water in predictable places, in groups, and they can be taken by a spearfisher with a torch essentially at will. Night spearfishing on sleeping aggregations has removed them from large parts of their range. They are also slow-growing, late-maturing and low in resilience, and they aggregate to spawn.
So this is a fish to recognise rather than to fish for. It is not a rod-and-line target in any meaningful sense; the fishery that matters is the spear fishery, and the practice that matters is not conducting one at night on a sleeping school. Several jurisdictions protect it and the position varies.
Identification
No photograph of Bumphead parrotfish has passed identity review yet, so none is shown. FishingHQ publishes a species photograph only once somebody has confirmed the animal in it against the species record’s own diagnostic features.
- Scientific name
- Bolbometopon muricatum
- Family
- Labridae
- Water
- Saltwater
- Conservation status
- Vulnerable
- Regions
- Indo-Pacific, East & Southern Africa, Australia, Pacific Islands
- Very large for a parrotfish — FishBase records 130 cm and 46 kg, which is several times any other species on the same reef.
- A squared-off, almost vertical forehead carrying a heavy bony bump on adults.
- Dull blue-green to olive body, often with a paler pinkish front to the head.
- The fused beak of a parrotfish, used here to bite live coral rather than to graze algae.
- Moves over the reef in schools rather than singly, which is part of what makes a school so vulnerable at night.
Size
- Typical
- 10–25 kg (22–55 lb)
- Large
- 30–40 kg (66–88 lb)
Exceptional: FishBase records a maximum of 130 cm and 46 kg
Lifecycle and reproduction
Reef-associated over a depth range of 0 to 40 m across the Indo-Pacific. FishBase gives it LOW resilience. It is slow-growing and late-maturing, schools by day and sleeps in predictable shallow sites at night, and aggregates to spawn — a combination of traits each of which increases how easily it can be removed from a reef.
Aggregating spawner, and parrotfishes generally are protogynous. The management consequence is the same as for the humphead wrasse: a predictable aggregation of a slow-maturing fish is the easiest thing in the sea to overfish, because the fishing effort required per fish does not rise as the population falls.
Feeding and senses
Bites and crushes live and dead coral with the fused beak and a heavy pharyngeal mill, digesting the algal and organic content and excreting the mineral fraction as sand. A large adult processes several tonnes of reef material a year, which makes it a physical agent of reef structure rather than merely a resident of one.
Daylight sight-feeding over reef in schools, and unafraid of divers by day. At night it sleeps in shallow, predictable sites — which is a sensory fact with an enormous fisheries consequence, because a sleeping fish detects nothing.
Through the year
Resident on the same reef year-round with spawning aggregation at particular times and places. Its seasonality matters far more to a manager than to an angler: the aggregations are when and where the population is most exposed.
Distribution
Indo-Pacific: Red Sea and East Africa to Samoa and the Line Islands, north to the Yaeyama and Wake islands, south to the Great Barrier Reef and New Caledonia
This is a biological range — where the species occurs, not a prediction that you will catch one. To browse the fishing geography FishingHQ holds, start at fishing places.
Why anglers care
Not a rod-and-line target in any real sense. The fishery that matters to this species is spearfishing, and specifically night spearfishing on sleeping schools, which is the principal documented driver of its decline across the Indo-Pacific. It is described here so that a diver recognises one and leaves it, and so that the reason is stated rather than assumed. Several jurisdictions protect it; the position varies and the authority where you are diving is who to ask.
Handling and returning
The question does not usually arise, and where it does the answer is to leave the fish alone. A speared bumphead is not a fish that can be released.
Safety
Fish welfare — Can cause serious injury or death
A Vulnerable, slow-growing, late-maturing, schooling and aggregating fish that sleeps in shallow water in predictable places. Night spearfishing on sleeping schools has removed it from large parts of its range, and the effort required to take one does not increase as the population falls — which is why local extirpation happens without any warning signal reaching the people doing it.
What reduces it: Do not spear it, and do not spear at night on shallow reef where sleeping schools are known. Learn to recognise it — the size and the squared forehead are unmistakable — and check the rules in the jurisdiction being dived, several of which protect it outright.
Where to go next
Similar and related fish
Where it lives
More fish
Not related to this page — just the rest of the section. There is little else joined to this subject yet, and a short page should still lead somewhere.
Sources and evidence
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Family, maximum size, depth range, environment, distribution and the IUCN assessment for Bolbometopon muricatum. FishBase places Bolbometopon in Labridae.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species — International Union for Conservation of Nature (Conservation authority)Relied on for: The Vulnerable assessment for Bolbometopon muricatum, assessed 15 July 2024.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- FAO Species Identification Guides for Fishery Purposes and the FAO Species Catalogues — Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Identification, distribution, habitat and fishery description from the FAO species identification guides for fishery purposes.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
Why the 2 connections on this page are here, and the sources
Similar and related fish
Backed by research — 1 connection
Supported by peer-reviewed research or fisheries science. The sources are listed and can be checked.
Humphead wrasse
Cheilinus undulatus is a wrasse with thick lips, ordinary wrasse teeth and fine wavy lines behind the eye, assessed Endangered; Bolbometopon muricatum is a parrotfish with a fused beak and a squared vertical forehead, assessed Vulnerable. FishBase places both in Labridae, which is part of why the names get swapped.
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: The morphology, size, depth range and distribution that separate these two species from one another.States this directlyPassage read and verified
Where it lives
Backed by research — 1 connection
Supported by peer-reviewed research or fisheries science. The sources are listed and can be checked.
Coral reef
Recorded as reef-associated over a depth range of 0 to 40 m across the Indo-Pacific. Its diet of live and dead coral makes it an agent of reef structure rather than only a resident of it.
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Environment, depth range, habitat association and distribution for Bolbometopon muricatum.States this directlyPassage read and verified
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy.