Ornate wrasse
Fish · Last reviewed 2026-08-25
The green-and-orange wrasse that takes everything on Canarian rock — sixty of them in a week to one angler, and the single most abundant fish in the archipelago's shore fishing.
Safety: fish welfare — minor injury.
Catching Ornate wrasse
Everything here on fishing for it. Each entry opens the page behind it.
- When
- Feb–Mar and May — months recorded at the places that document it, not a season for the whole range.
- Where
- 8 places FishingHQ documents — strongest claim anywhere: repeatedly reported · From the shore
If one fish had to stand for what a light rod actually catches on Macaronesian rock, it is this one. A species-hunting angler fishing a week around Puerto del Carmen landed sixty of them — more than twice the next most numerous species on his list, and more than the whole of the rest of the seabream, mackerel and comber put together.
It is unmistakable and it is beautiful: a slim wrasse in bands of green and orange with a blue-marked head, the pattern strongest on the largest fish. Like most wrasses it is a protogynous hermaphrodite with sharply different colour phases, so the plain-marked small fish and the vividly banded large ones are one species at two stages of life rather than two species. FishBase records a maximum of 25 cm.
It lives on coastal rock and in eel-grass, usually alone or in small groups, from a metre down to 150 m and commonly inside 50 m. It eats small molluscs and crustaceans, and it eats them with the confidence of something that has never been anywhere quiet: a small soft plastic, a scrap of prawn or a piece of worm dropped anywhere near rock in the Canaries will be taken by an ornate wrasse before it is taken by anything else.
That behaviour is the practical fact worth knowing about it, and it cuts both ways. It is the reason an ultralight session in the islands is never blank. It is also the reason a bait meant for a seabream rarely reaches the bottom, and why anglers targeting anything larger go up in bait size rather than up in hook size.
How it is caught
Where Ornate wrasse is documented
Places where public sources describe this species as fished, with how it is fished and how strongly the evidence supports it. This is not a range map and it is not a recommendation — it is what has been written down about a fishery rather than a record of any individual catch, and being listed is never permission to fish.
Lanzarote
4 documented places
Puerto Calero, Lanzarote
Harbour wall
Recorded here
From the shore
Reported May
The cliff coast between Puerto del Carmen and Puerto Calero
Rock mark
Repeatedly reported
From the shore
Reported May
Puerto del Carmen harbour, Lanzarote
Harbour wall
Repeatedly reported
From the shore
Reported May
Papagayo and Playa Blanca
Cove
Recorded here
From the shore
Reported May
The Azores
3 documented places
Ponta Delgada harbour, São Miguel
Harbour wall
Recorded here
From the shore
Reported Mar
Vila Franca do Campo, São Miguel
Harbour wall
Recorded here
From the shore
Reported Mar
Ponta da Costa, São Miguel
Rock mark
Recorded here
From the shore
Reported Mar
What these strengths mean
- Recorded here
- At least one credible public account of this species being caught here. That is all it means.
- Repeatedly reported
- Several independent public accounts. Enough to say it happens more than once; not enough to call it a fishery.
When to fish for ornate wrasse
Where the places here state a season for ornate wrasse, it clusters in Mar, May. This is a count of how many documented places name each month — evidence about when people fish for it, not a prediction of what any particular day will produce.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January: no place here names this month — no place names it. | February: 1 place names this month — few places. | March: 3 places name this month — many places. | April: no place here names this month — no place names it. | May: 4 places name this month — most places. | June: no place here names this month — no place names it. | July: no place here names this month — no place names it. | August: no place here names this month — no place names it. | September: no place here names this month — no place names it. | October: no place here names this month — no place names it. | November: no place here names this month — no place names it. | December: no place here names this month — no place names it. |
8 of the 8 places that record ornate wrasse as quarry state which months. The dated records span 3 separate areas.
Identification
No photograph of Ornate 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
- Thalassoma pavo
- Family
- Labridae
- Water
- Saltwater
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Regions
- Western Europe, Mediterranean, West Africa
- A slim, cigar-shaped wrasse banded in green and orange, with blue lines and markings about the head.
- Large terminal-phase fish are vividly patterned with a broad dark bar behind the pectoral; small and initial-phase fish are much plainer and often reddish-brown with a dark spot on the dorsal.
- The two colour forms are one species at two stages — it is a protogynous hermaphrodite with distinct sexual dichromatism.
- Never large: FishBase records a maximum of 25 cm, and the everyday fish is well under that.
- Separated from the Canary parrotfish, which shares its ground, by having ordinary wrasse teeth rather than a fused beak.
Size
- Typical
- 10–18 cm
- Large
- 20 cm and over
Exceptional: FishBase records a maximum of 25 cm
Lifecycle and reproduction
Reef-associated over a depth range of 1 to 150 m and usually 1 to 50 m, in coastal water near rocks and eel-grass beds. Usually solitary, sometimes in small groups. Medium resilience.
A protogynous hermaphrodite with distinct sexual dichromatism: fish mature in the initial phase and the large, brightly banded terminal-phase individuals are males. Eggs are pelagic. The colour difference between the phases is large enough that the two were long taken for different fish.
Feeding and senses
Feeds on small molluscs and crustaceans picked off rock and weed. It is bold to the point of being a problem — it investigates anything that arrives, which is why it dominates a light-tackle catch and why it strips a bait intended for something else.
A visual, daylight feeder in clear shallow water, and unbothered by presence above it in a way most of the fish around it are not. Colour and movement bring it in; there is no case for finesse in fishing for it, only in fishing past it.
Through the year
Resident and available year-round on shallow rock throughout the archipelago, which is what makes it the reliable fish of a winter session. Warmer months bring it into the shallowest water.
Distribution
Eastern Atlantic: Portugal to south of Cape Lopez, Gabon and including the islands of Azores, Madeira, Canary, São Tomé and Annobon. Also in the Mediterranean
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
The most numerous fish in Canary shore angling and the backbone of light rock fishing there. Taken on drop-shotted soft plastics, small jigheads, float-fished scraps and any small natural bait, on hooks of size 8 to 12, from any rock or harbour wall in the islands. It is not a target for size and it is the reason the discipline works: an island where a beginner catches a fish every few casts is an island where somebody keeps fishing.
Handling and returning
A small fish with fine jaws and no spines worth worrying about, and the risk runs the other way. Use barbless or crushed-barb hooks, unhook wet-handed and in the water where possible, and return it quickly — a fish this size deep-hooked on a bait left too long is a fish that will not survive being unhooked.
Safety
Fish welfare — Minor injury
It takes a small bait fast and swallows it, so a bait left to be picked at produces deep-hooked fish. On a fish of ten to fifteen centimetres a deep hook is usually fatal whatever is done next.
What reduces it: Strike early rather than waiting, fish small hooks with crushed barbs, and cut the trace on a fish hooked out of sight rather than digging for the hook. Handle with wet hands and return it without lifting it far.
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 Thalassoma pavo.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 Least Concern assessment for Thalassoma pavo, assessed 12 July 2008.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- REDPROMAR — the Canary Government's marine observation and species network — Gobierno de Canarias, Consejería de Transición Ecológica — REDPROMAR, with GRAFCAN (Conservation authority)Relied on for: That this species is recorded in Canary waters by the regional government's marine observation network, and the Canarian vernacular name it files it under.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- Species hunting adventures on Lanzarote — a four-part shore diary with a full tally — Something Fishy Going On (angling blog), parts also posted to World Sea Fishing, 2014 (Practitioner report)Relied on for: That this species is taken from named public shore marks on Lanzarote, how many were caught across one week in May, and the light-tackle methods and baits that took them.States this directlyPassage read and verified
Why the 5 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.
Rainbow wrasse
Coris julis carries an orange or red ZIGZAG along the flank in terminal-phase males and buries in sand when alarmed; Thalassoma pavo is BANDED in green and orange and does not. Both are protogynous with dramatic phase differences, both are reef-associated in shallow Macaronesian water, and both dominate a light-tackle catch there.
- 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
How it is caught
Reported, not established — 2 connections
Reported, but without independent support. Recorded because it is in circulation, not because it has been shown to hold.
Drop shotting
The diary describes a drop-shot rig with a size 10 hook and a small soft-plastic worm bait as the standing setup, and ornate wrasse as the fish that takes it before anything else does.
- Species hunting adventures on Lanzarote — a four-part shore diary with a full tally — Something Fishy Going On (angling blog), parts also posted to World Sea Fishing, 2014 (Practitioner report)Relied on for: The light-tackle methods, rigs, lures, baits and hook sizes a species-hunting angler used on Lanzarote, and the species each took.States this directlyPassage read and verified
Light rock fishing
The Lanzarote diary records ornate wrasse as by far the most numerous species of the trip, taken throughout on drop-shotted soft plastics, small paddletails on jigheads and float-fished scraps on hooks of size 8 to 12 — which is light rock fishing exactly as the method record describes it.
- Species hunting adventures on Lanzarote — a four-part shore diary with a full tally — Something Fishy Going On (angling blog), parts also posted to World Sea Fishing, 2014 (Practitioner report)Relied on for: The light-tackle methods, rigs, lures, baits and hook sizes a species-hunting angler used on Lanzarote, and the species each took.States this directlyPassage read and verified
Where it lives
Backed by research — 2 connections
Supported by peer-reviewed research or fisheries science. The sources are listed and can be checked.
Rocky shores and reefs
Recorded as reef-associated from 1 to 150 m and usually 1 to 50 m, inhabiting coastal waters near rocks and eel-grass beds.
- 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 Thalassoma pavo.States this directlyPassage read and verified
Seagrass beds
FishBase records it inhabiting coastal waters near rocks AND eel-grass beds, and the seagrass association is a real second habitat rather than incidental proximity to the rock.
- 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 Thalassoma pavo.States this directlyPassage read and verified
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy.