Ember parrotfish in Los Cabos

How to recognize it

Elongate, oval, compressed body with a steep, blunt snout that becomes angular in big males. The teeth are fused into a beak. Terminal-phase males are mainly green to bluish green, sometimes purplish on the front half, which gives a strong two-tone look, with a pair of blue bands on the chin and a blue-green beak; their tail is deeply concave with long tips. Initial-phase fish are gray on the front half and whitish behind, with small black spots, dark lines on the sides and red fins. Larger juveniles are whitish with three brown to olive stripes, scattered white spots and a white blotch at the base of the tail.

Biology

The ember parrotfish is one of the most widespread parrotfish: it ranges from East Africa across the Indian and Pacific Oceans to the Americas. In the eastern Pacific it is found from the central Gulf of California to Colombia, plus the Revillagigedo, Clipperton, Cocos, Malpelo and Galápagos islands. It lives on shallow reefs and their edges, 1 to 35 m deep, usually alone or in pairs. FishBase calls it uncommon, and in the Gulf of California the bumphead and bluechin parrotfish are the dominant species.

It feeds on algae scraped from rock and coral. It is a protogynous hermaphrodite: fish start as females and the largest become terminal males. FishBase cites a study in which sex change happened at about 37 cm and 13 years of age, and the species can live 20 years.

Seeing them from the boat

The ember parrotfish is a fish for snorkelers and divers, not a sport fish. It is less common around Cabo than the bumphead and bluechin parrotfish, so a big two-tone male is a good find on a shallow reef dive.

It feeds by scraping algae off rock and coral, so it seldom takes baits or lures. If one is hooked by accident, release it. It is not protected under NOM-059, but sport fishing is not allowed inside Cabo Pulmo National Park.

On the table

Edible. FishBase lists it in commercial fisheries across its range.

Rules & conservation

Not a sport fish. If one is hooked by accident, release it.

Don't confuse it with

The bluechin parrotfish (Scarus ghobban) male also has a deeply concave tail, but it is blue-green on the back with salmon-pink scale edges and a mostly salmon-pink lower side. The bumphead parrotfish (Scarus perrico) has a hump on the forehead, a blunt rounded tail and only 2 rows of cheek scales. The azure parrotfish (Scarus compressus) is green with orange-brown scale outlines and a straight to slightly concave tail. A green male with a darker front half and long tail tips is the ember parrotfish.

Questions

By Max VargasTop Anglers, Cabo San Lucas · international judge at big game fishing world championships · reviewed October 2026

Sources

• Smithsonian Shorefishes of the Eastern Pacific: Scarus rubroviolaceus
• FishBase: Scarus rubroviolaceus
• Reef Life Survey: ember parrotfish
• Florent's Guide to the Eastern Pacific Reefs: ember parrotfish (Cabo San Lucas photo)
• The ETYFish Project: Scarinae etymology
• Ong & Holland 2010, bioerosion by two Hawaiian parrotfishes (Marine Biology)
• Raymundo Huizar et al. 2015, fish bioerosion at Islas Marietas (Investigación y Ciencia)
• Melgarejo-Damián et al. 2018, feeding biomechanics of two Gulf of California parrotfishes (Zoomorphology)
• Smithsonian Shorefishes of the Eastern Pacific: bluechin parrotfish
• Smithsonian Shorefishes of the Eastern Pacific: bumphead parrotfish
• Smithsonian Shorefishes of the Eastern Pacific: azure parrotfish
• NOM-059-SEMARNAT-2010, 2019 annex (DOF)
• NOM-017-PESC-1994, 2013 amendment (DOF)

Top illustration: Top Anglers. Photos: iNaturalist contributors, credited on each photo.