Long green wrasse

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Long green wrasse
Drawing by Dr Tony Ayling
Drawing by Dr Tony Ayling
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Perciformes
Family: Labridae
Genus: Pseudojuloides
Species: P. elongatus
Binomial name
Pseudojuloides elongatus
(Ayling & Russell, 1977)

The long green wrasse, Pseudojuloides elongatus, is a wrasse of the genus Pseudojuloides, found in Japan, New South Wales and Western Australia in Australia, and the Poor Knights Islands off the east coast of Northland in New Zealand, in weedy reef areas at depths of between 10 and 30 m. Its length is between 8 and 15 cm.

The long green wrasse was discovered in New Zealand and Australia simultaneously in the 1970s. It is a small elongate fish of typical wrasse shape which seems to live exclusively within kelp, hardly ever being seen due to its secretive habits. Young fish are a uniform orange-brown, adults keeping this colour but with bright blue lines on the head and along the outer margin of the anal fin, scattered blue dots on the upper flanks, and red markings on the fins.

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