Stoplight Parrotfish (Sparisoma viride) - Fused teeth, resembling beaks, and brilliant colors give the parrotfish its name. The beaks are used to scrape algae and coral polyps from the coral heads, and in so doing they ingest limestone from the reef and excrete the residue as sand.
Photo by Stephen Frink
unused, bought in 2010
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The Stoplight parrotfish is a sex-changing fish inhabiting coral reefs in Florida, Bahamas, the Caribbean, eastern Gulf of Mexico, Bermuda, and Brazil. Its typical length is between 30 and 45 cm, but it can reach 60 cm at times.
The colors of the Stoplight parrotfish in the initial phase, when it could be either a male or a female, are dramatically different from those in the terminal phase, when it's definitely a male.
The common name, stoplight, comes from the marked yellow spot near the pectoral fin, which is clearly visible only in specimens in the terminal phase.
Their pharyngeal teeth grind up coral rock that the fish ingests during feeding. After they digest they excrete the rock as sand helping to create small islands and the sandy beaches of the Caribbean. One parrotfish can produce 90 kg of sand each year.
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