scientific ID this parrot fish

[Willito]

[Mandosh]

Chlorurus sordidus?

[paddyob]

Wow. Is that yours???

[High tide]

Chlorurus bowersi.

[Willito]

Mandosh and hightide, this is the exact problem I am having. Trying to identify Parrotfish is not easy, just way too many color variants and no good source.

[High tide]

Check out page 375 in Wrasses & Parrotfishes by Scott W. Michael. There is a near identical specimen to the one in question.

[Willito]

wish I had that book, thanks for looking it up. I am thinking your suggestion might be the one to go with.

[Mandosh]

I'd actually lean more towards C. bowersi. Nice call High Tide.


After spending way more time looking into this than I should have, these two fish are almost identical morphologically (other than color, maybe, which leads me to believe High Tide is right). The orange spot looks to be located more ventral to the eye in sordis, rather than posterior to the eye like in bowersi and the photo. The only concrete distinguishing features I can find though are bowersi will have exactly 48 gill rakers and 15 rays on the pectoral fin. Any more or less of either and its likely a sordidus.

[Willito]

Aside from wanting to know the identification, I mostly want to know what the terminal phase coloration would be. Judging by some of the photos I've seen, the photo I posted above seems pretty close to a what a fully grown adult male would represent.

[High tide]

I think you're right, the photo I referred to even says it's terminal phase. Gorgeous fish!