![]() ![]() Unfortunately, they are routine in their mating and other habits, and since humphead parrotfish like to school in large numbers and use predictable sleeping sites in shallow waters, it makes them easy to harvest for food. They create a mucus-like bubble around themselves. In addition, humphead parrotfish have an interesting way to sleep. Often after a full moon rotation, in the early morning, females release eggs that are fertilized by the sperm circulated in the water by the male humpheads. Humphead parrotfish are dependable when it comes to spawning (called an aggregation). Because of this phenomenon, after eating approximately five to six tons of coral a year, they produce enough sediment to create new reefs, distribute more sand, and influence the structure of current reefs and spawn new coral reef ecosystems. The hard material that does not provide nutritious food for them is pulverized and passed like feces. The parrotfish grind the coral into a hard paste, extracting what they love most, the algae. To get this, they take big bites of coral, which is extremely hard material. All this is an adaptation for their lunch. They also have pharyngeal teeth at the back of their throat. Most extraordinary though are their mouths, which house beak-like front teeth-big ones. They use their pectoral fins to motor around. Often a social and gregarious animal coming out of shoals (a lower bank area), parrotfish swim mostly in schools and can group together up to 75 or more. They use these big foreheads in head-butting contests for a chance to mate or control the school. The reason for its name is the prominent bulbous forehead, which develops in adults. They grow slowly and their life span is about 40 years. The largest species of parrotfish, they can weigh up to 46 kilograms (about 100 pounds) and reach a length of 1.3 meters (nearly 4 1/2 feet). ![]() The humphead parrotfish is as big as a dog. They have beaks with strong teeth in a vertically shaped head. They are similar to birds in another manner as well. Humpheads (Bolbometopon muricatum) are not as colorful as some other parrotfish but they may be olive, blue-green or slate-grey, with a yellowish to pink head. There are many kinds and types of parrotfish, named partly because of their myriad colorful scales, which resemble parrots and their colorful feathers. The salty water has thousands of inhabitants, including the most interesting, the humphead parrotfish.Īround the world, humpheads are found mainly in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, from the Red Sea east to the Line Islands, north to Taiwan, and south to the Great Barrier Reef and New Caledonia. It runs along the coastline of Florida all the way to the top of South America. In the United States, there is only one living coral reef, but it is a big one. ![]()
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