Bumphead Parrotfish

Môi trường sống: Coral reefs and lagoons; sleeps in wrecks, caves, and channels in packed herds, grazes reef flats by day

Phạm vi phân bố: Indo-Pacific from the Red Sea and East Africa through the Coral Triangle to Micronesia and the western Pacific; scarce or gone near heavy fishing

Hành vi: Travels in herds of a dozen to a hundred, grazing in slow bulldozer lines with audible crunches, trailing plumes of coral sand. Males headbutt audibly in dawn dominance contests — the function of the bump made literal. Sleeps communally and predictably, which made night spearfishing so devastating.

Chế độ ăn: Live coral and coralline algae — an adult crunches through tonnes of reef a year and excretes it as sand

Kích thước: thường vào khoảng 1.0 m; ghi nhận đến độ sâu 1.3 m (total length; the largest parrotfish, to around 45 kg).

Never disturb sleeping herds on night dives — a panicked exodus injures fish on the reef. By day, position yourself beside the grazing line, not in it, and skip flash on close sleeping fish.

Vulnerable; night spearfishing of sleeping herds emptied much of its range, and recovery is slow — protected aggregations at Palau, Sipadan, and Tubbataha are the benchmarks.