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Fish

Cuckoo wrasse

Labrus mixtus

Labrus mixtus Linnaeus, 1758 · Labridae WoRMS 151501

Reference photos

Tap a photo to enlarge.

Two looks. Older males have a dark blue head with brilliant blue lines and blotches along the flanks, over a bright orange body and fins. Females are rose-pink to orange-red with 2 to 3 dark spots, interspersed with white, on the rear dorsal fin and the adjacent tail fin. Young males look like females but lack those spots.

Depth

2-200 m, mainly between 20 and 80 m

Size

Up to 40 cm, commonly about 30 cm; females up to 30 cm

Habitat

Over rocks and hard ground and in the algal zone of rocky shores, between 2 and 200 m but mainly 20-80 m

Behaviour

Usually solitary or in pairs; the female lays about 1,000 eggs in a nest of algae and the male builds and guards the nest

Diet

I eat

  • Mainly crustaceans
  • Fishes
  • Molluscs and worms

Where you'd find it

Found around most of Britain and Ireland, though less often in the North Sea.

ChannelCeltic SeaNorth SeaIrish SeaW of IrelandW of Scotland
Often seenNow and thenWhere PEBL filmsBased on marine survey records (OBIS). Blank seas can mean nobody has looked there, not that the animal is absent.

Sources

Open-access references behind this page. Every statement on this page was read out of one of them; anything that could not be traced to a source was taken off the page rather than left standing. Each link was checked on the date shown, and confirmed then to be about this species.

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