Humphead wrasse
Fish · Last reviewed 2026-08-25
The largest wrasse in the world at 229 centimetres and 191 kilos — thirty-two years old, ENDANGERED, and a fish to recognise rather than to catch.
Safety: fish welfare — can cause serious injury or death.
The most useful thing to know about the humphead wrasse is a reason not to kill one.
The humphead wrasse is the largest member of the wrasse family: FishBase records a maximum of 229 cm and 191 kg and an age of thirty-two years. Adults are unmistakable — a huge, thick-lipped, blue-green fish with a pronounced bulbous hump on the forehead of large males and fine wavy lines radiating behind the eye. It lives reef-associated from the surface to 100 m across the Indo-Pacific, from the Red Sea to South Africa and east to the Tuamotus, north to the Ryukyus and south to New Caledonia.
It is assessed by the IUCN as ENDANGERED under criterion A2bcd, having previously been Vulnerable. The decline is driven by fishing: it is slow-growing, late-maturing, naturally uncommon even on healthy reefs, and it changes sex — which means the large fish are males and removing them removes the breeding structure of a population, not merely individuals. It has been heavily targeted for the live reef food fish trade, and it is easily taken at night, when it sleeps in the open on the reef.
So the honest fishing entry is short: it takes baits and lures readily, it is caught incidentally by anglers fishing reefs across its range, and the right response to catching one is to release it in the water without lifting it out. Many jurisdictions within its range protect it and it is listed on CITES Appendix II; a reader intending to fish anywhere it occurs should check the rules where they are, because they vary and they change.
Recognition is the whole of it. The commonest way a protected reef fish is killed is by somebody who did not know what it was.
Identification
No photograph of Humphead wrasse 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
- Cheilinus undulatus
- Family
- Labridae
- Water
- Saltwater
- Conservation status
- Endangered
- Regions
- Indo-Pacific, East & Southern Africa, East Asia, Australia, Pacific Islands
- Enormous for a wrasse: FishBase records 229 cm and 191 kg, which is far larger than anything else in the family.
- A pronounced bulbous hump on the forehead of large adults, most developed on big males.
- Thick fleshy lips and a blue-green to greenish-blue body with a fine dark reticulated pattern on the scales.
- Two fine wavy lines running back from behind the eye across the cheek.
- Juveniles are much paler with a pattern of dark lines and lack the hump entirely, so a small fish is not obviously the same species.
Size
- Typical
- 10–30 kg (22–66 lb)
- Large
- 50–100 kg (110–220 lb)
Exceptional: FishBase records a maximum of 229 cm and 191 kg, and an age of 32 years
Lifecycle and reproduction
Reef-associated over a depth range of 0 to 100 m across the Indo-Pacific. FishBase records a maximum age of 32 years and gives it LOW resilience. It is naturally uncommon even where reefs are in good condition, which is a point often missed: scarcity is partly its baseline and partly the decline.
Protogynous: fish mature as female and the large humped individuals are males. That is the fact behind the conservation status as much as the fishing pressure is — removing the largest fish from a protogynous population removes its males, and a fishery that selects for size is selecting against the population's ability to reproduce rather than merely reducing its numbers.
Feeding and senses
Takes hard-shelled prey — molluscs, crustaceans, echinoderms — crushing them with powerful pharyngeal teeth, and is one of the few reef fish that routinely eats toxic prey including crown-of-thorns starfish and boxfish. It takes an angler's bait readily, which is part of the problem.
Close-range sight over reef in clear water, and notably unafraid: it approaches divers and boats, which is why it is a favourite of underwater photographers and why it is so easily taken by spearfishers.
Through the year
Resident on the same reef year-round and site-faithful, with some spawning aggregation behaviour documented. Site fidelity and predictable aggregation are exactly the traits that make a species easy to fish out.
Distribution
Indo-Pacific: Red Sea to South Africa and to the Tuamoto Islands, north to the Ryukyu Islands, south to 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
Caught incidentally by anglers fishing reefs across the Indo-Pacific, and taken deliberately in places for the live reef food fish trade. It is recorded here so that it is RECOGNISED. It is assessed as Endangered, it is listed on CITES Appendix II, it is protected outright in a number of jurisdictions within its range, and the correct response to hooking one is to release it in the water. Rules vary by country and change, and the authority where you are fishing is who to ask.
Handling and returning
Do not lift it out of the water. Unhook it boat-side with long tools or cut the trace close to the hook, support it in the water until it swims strongly, and never hold a large wrasse vertically by the jaw. A fish of this size lifted by the head is injured by its own weight before anything else happens to it.
Safety
Fish welfare — Can cause serious injury or death
An Endangered, slow-growing, late-maturing, sex-changing fish whose largest individuals are its males. A single large humphead wrasse killed is a disproportionate loss to a local population, and the commonest cause is an angler or diver who did not recognise it.
What reduces it: Learn to recognise it before fishing an Indo-Pacific reef. Release any that is hooked, in the water, without lifting it out. Check the rules in the jurisdiction being fished — many protect it, it is on CITES Appendix II, and the position differs from country to country.
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 Cheilinus undulatus.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 Endangered assessment for Cheilinus undulatus, assessed 17 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 3 connections on this page are here, and the sources
Similar and related fish
Backed by research — 2 connections
Supported by peer-reviewed research or fisheries science. The sources are listed and can be checked.
Ballan wrasse
Cheilinus undulatus reaches 229 cm and 191 kg; Labrus bergylta reaches a fraction of that and is the largest wrasse a European shore angler will meet. The comparison is the useful one for a reader whose idea of a wrasse is a two-pound fish off a Cornish rock mark.
- 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
Bumphead parrotfish
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 100 m across the Indo-Pacific, from the Red Sea to South Africa and east to the Tuamotus.
- 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 Cheilinus undulatus.States this directlyPassage read and verified
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