Rainbow wrasse
Fish · Last reviewed 2026-08-25
A slim, orange-zigzagged wrasse that changes sex and colour so completely the two phases were long taken for different fish.
Safety: fish welfare — minor injury.
Catching Rainbow wrasse
Everything here on fishing for it. Each entry opens the page behind it.
- Ground
- When
- Mar — months recorded at the places that document it, not a season for the whole range.
- Where
- 2 places FishingHQ documents — strongest claim anywhere: recorded here · From the shore
The rainbow wrasse is the fish that teaches an angler what protogyny looks like, because it does not do it subtly.
Initial-phase fish are slim, brown-backed and white-bellied with a plain orange-red stripe. Terminal-phase males are transformed: bright green or blue-brown above, a vivid orange zigzag band along the flank, and a black-and-yellow blotch behind the pectoral fin. They were described as separate species more than once, and the Azores checklist notes that Regan in 1903 cited both *Coris julis* and *C. giofredi* — which is the same confusion in the historical record.
It is a small fish, FishBase recording 30 cm and an age of seven years, reef-associated from the surface to 120 m and usually inside 60, running from Sweden to Gabon and through the Mediterranean. The Azores checklist gives it `lambaz` and `peixe-rei`.
For an angler it is a companion capture rather than a target: it takes small baits and soft plastics fished near rock with the same enthusiasm as the ornate wrasse it shares ground with in the Atlantic islands, and it is caught in numbers by anybody fishing small. It has a habit worth knowing — it buries itself in sand at night and when alarmed, which is why a mark that is full of them by day can appear empty at dusk.
FishBase adds a caution about its southern edge: specimens from Cape Verde and Senegal southward are probably *Coris atlantica*, treated there as a junior synonym pending publication.
Where Rainbow 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.
The Azores
2 documented places
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.
Identification
No photograph of Rainbow 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
- Coris julis
- Family
- Labridae
- Water
- Saltwater
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Regions
- Western Europe, Northern Europe, Mediterranean, West Africa, North Africa
- Terminal-phase males: a vivid orange or red zigzag band running the length of a green or blue-brown flank, with a black-and-yellow blotch behind the pectoral fin.
- Initial-phase fish: much plainer, brown above and white below with a straight orange-red stripe and no zigzag.
- Slim and cigar-shaped, like the ornate wrasse it shares Macaronesian rock with, but never banded green-and-orange the way that species is.
- FishBase records a maximum of 30 cm and an age of 7 years.
- It buries in sand when alarmed, which no other wrasse on the same ground does.
Size
- Typical
- 12–20 cm
- Large
- 25 cm and over
Exceptional: FishBase records a maximum of 30 cm and an age of 7 years
Lifecycle and reproduction
Reef-associated over a depth range of 0 to 120 m and usually 1 to 60 m, in water of roughly 18 to 22 °C. Medium resilience. It buries itself in sand at night and when threatened, which is a genuine behavioural difference from the other wrasses on the same ground.
Protogynous with pronounced sexual dichromatism: fish mature in the initial phase and the large, vividly zigzagged terminal-phase individuals are males. The difference between the phases is great enough that the two were repeatedly described as separate species, and the Azores checklist records that history rather than tidying it away.
Feeding and senses
Takes small crustaceans, molluscs and worms picked off rock and weed, working constantly and investigating anything that arrives. It is bold in the way most small wrasses are, which is why it dominates a light-tackle catch alongside the ornate wrasse.
Daylight sight-feeding in clear water at close range, and largely untroubled by an angler above it. Its evening disappearance into the sand is the sensory fact that matters most in practice.
Through the year
Resident year-round on the same rock through the warmer parts of its range, moving deeper in winter at the northern edge of it. In the Atlantic islands it is available in every month.
Distribution
Eastern Atlantic: Sweden to south of Cape Lopez, Gabon. Also known from the Mediterranean Sea. Specimen of Coris from Cape Verde and Senegal southward are probably Coris atlantica , here still treated as a junior synonym pending a definite publication of validity
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
A standing companion capture in light rock fishing from Iberia to the Atlantic islands and throughout the Mediterranean, taken on small soft plastics, scraps of prawn and worm on hooks of size 8 to 12. It is not a target for size and it is one of the fish that makes ultralight fishing on that ground continuous rather than occasional.
Handling and returning
A small fish with fine jaws and nothing that will hurt a hand. Crushed barbs, wet hands, unhook in the water where possible — a deeply hooked wrasse of this size is a fish that will not survive the hook being dug for.
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, and on a fish of fifteen centimetres a deep hook is usually fatal whatever follows.
What reduces it: Strike early, fish small hooks with crushed barbs, and cut the trace on a fish hooked out of sight rather than digging for the hook.
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 Coris julis.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 Coris julis, assessed 11 February 2009.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- Marine fishes of the Azores: an annotated checklist and bibliography — Santos, Porteiro & Barreiros — Arquipélago, Life and Marine Sciences, Supplement 1, University of the Azores, 1997 (Scientific literature)Relied on for: That this species is recorded from the Azores, and the Portuguese and Azorean vernacular names the checklist gives it.States this directlyPassage read and verified
Why the 3 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.
Ornate 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 — 1 connection
Reported, but without independent support. Recorded because it is in circulation, not because it has been shown to hold.
Light rock fishing
Recorded as blacktail rainbow wrasse at two São Miguel marks in March, on tanago hooks, prawn fragments and small soft plastics — the same ultralight tackle that took the ornate wrasse alongside it.
- Species hunting adventures on São Miguel — a two-part March diary at named marks — Something Fishy Going On (angling blog), 2022 (Practitioner report)Relied on for: The light-tackle methods, rigs, hooks and baits a species-hunting angler used on São Miguel in March, and the species each took.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.
Rocky shores and reefs
Recorded as reef-associated over a depth range of 0 to 120 m and usually 1 to 60 m from Sweden to Gabon and through the Mediterranean. Its habit of burying in sand at night and when threatened is why a mark full of them by day can look empty at dusk.
- 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 Coris julis.States this directlyPassage read and verified
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy.