Girdled wrasse

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Girdled wrasse
Drawing by Dr Tony Ayling
Drawing by Dr Tony Ayling
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Perciformes
Family: Labridae
Genus: Notolabrus
Species: N. cinctus
Binomial name
Notolabrus cinctus
(Hutton, 1877)

The girdled wrasse, Notolabrus cinctus, is a wrasse of the genus Notolabrus, found around the South Island of New Zealand including the Chatham Islands and Snares Islands at depths of between 20 and 90 m. Its length, when fully grown, is between 20 and 35 cm.

The girdled wrasse is an uncommon fish which at first sight could be mistaken for a large New Zealand spotty, although it grows to be up to one third larger.

Young fish are a uniform olive brown, while adults are brown-grey with a single wide blue-grey vertical bar down each side. There is no visible difference between the sexes.

Young girdled wrasse remove parasites from fish, moving on to their adult diet of molluscs, crabs and other crustaceans, including planktonic animals.

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