Acanthuridae

Yellow tang

Zebrasoma flavescens

Courtship and spawning gather pace around every full moon

• Yellow
• Tropical
• Regional distribution
• Marine fish
• Compressed
• Medium
• Tropical fish

Radiant monochromatic brilliance and graceful disc-like geometry make the yellow tang the consummate ambassador of coral reefs throughout the Hawaiian archipelago. Its deep, dramatically compressed body and lofty, sail-like dorsal and anal fins are bathed in an unyielding bright canary-yellow, contrasted only by a pristine white defensive spine resting on the caudal peduncle. A prolonged, slender snout ends in a small mouth crowded with specialized spatulate incisors engineered to nip delicate algae from narrow limestone fissures. While small scattered populations occur elsewhere in the central and western Pacific, Hawaii accounts for the vast majority of its global population, where it inhabits protected coral lagoons, basaltic terraces, and seaward slopes between two and forty-six meters depth. Diurnal and industrious, solitary grazers patrol rocky ridges or coalesce into roaming schools that crop filamentous turf algae and gently pick epibionts from the shells of resting green sea turtles. Spawning is tightly synchronized with lunar cycles around full moons. Maximum total length is approximately twenty centimetres.

Sources: FishBase — Yellow Tang, Zebrasoma flavescens