Blue Parrotfish, Scarus coeruleus
Blue Parrotfish, Scarus coeruleus, Juvenile. Fish caught from coastal waters off Marathon Key, Florida, December 2013. Length: 18 cm (7.1 inches). Catch, photograph and identification courtesy of Luke Ovgard, Klamath Falls, Oregon.
Blue Parrotfish, Scarus coeruleus, Juvenile. Fish caught from coastal waters off Key Largo, Florida, December 2013. Length: 26 cm (10 inches). Catch, photograph and identification courtesy of Ben Cantrell, Peoria, Illinois.
Blue Parrotfish, Scarus coeruleus, Initial Phase (IP) Female. Fish caught from coastal waters off Key Largo, Florida, December 2013. Length: 26 cm (10 inches). Catch, photograph, and identification courtesy of Josh Leisen (joshadventures.com), Gaylord, Michigan.
Blue Parrotfish, Scarus coeruleus, Initial phase (IP) Female. Underwater photograph taken with coastal waters off Cozumel Island, Quintana Roo, March 2021. Photograph and identification courtesy of Marina Sutormina, Stockholm, Sweden.
Blue Parrotfish, Scarus coeruleus, Initial Phase (IP) Female Transitioning to Terminal Phase (TP) Male. Fish caught off the Channel 5 Bridge (MM 71.4), Florida Keys, Florida, December 2015. Length: 28 cm (11 inches). Catch, photograph and identification courtesy of George Brinkman, Guelph, Ontario, Canada.
Blue Parrotfish, Scarus coeruleus, Terminal Phase (TP) Male. Fish caught from coastal waters off Key Largo, Florida, December 2013. Length: 30 cm (12 inches). Catch, photograph and identification courtesy of Ben Cantrell, Peoria, Illinois.
Blue Parrotfish, Scarus coeruleus, Terminal Phase (TP) Male. Fish caught from coastal waters off Islamorada, Florida, December 2016. Length: 30 cm (12 inches). Catch, photograph and identification courtesy of Eli (obsessiveangling.wordpress.com).
The Blue Parrotfish, Scarus coeruleus, is a member of the Parrotfish or Scaridae Family, and is known in Mexico as loro azul. Globally, there are sixty-four species in the genus Scarus, of which ten are found in Mexican waters, six in the Atlantic and four in the Pacific Ocean.
The Blue Parrotfish is the second largest Parrotfish in the Caribbean. They have elongated oval somewhat compressed body. Juveniles are pale blue with yellow anal, dorsal, pectoral, and pelvic fins and have square heads. Initial Phase (IP) females are various shades of blue and have a yellow spot on top of their conical head. Terminal Phase (TP) males range in color from powder blue to deep blue and blue-green with a broad gray area on their cheeks; they have a square head with a strong hump on top of their snout. Their teeth are fused into a beak with 2 broad joined plates on each jaw. Their top jaw overlaps the lower jaw at the front forming a protruding snout. They have 1 or 2 canine teeth on the rear side of their top jaw. Their anal fin has 3 spines and 9 rays; their caudal fin is rounded in juveniles and concave with elongated lobes in mature adults; and, their dorsal fin has 9 spines and 10 rays and is continuous without a notch. They have 31 to 50 gill rakers. Their body is covered with large smooth scales. Their lateral line has two sections.
The Blue Parrotfish is a shallow water coastal species found in tropical and subtropical areas of the Caribbean at depths between 3 m (10 feet) and 24 m (80 feet). Juveniles inhabit Turtle Grass, Thalassia testudinum, beds and mangroves and adults inhabit coral reefs and rubble flats. They reach a maximum of 1.20 m (3 feet 11 inches) in length. As of January 1, 2023, the International Game Fish Association world record stood at 3.97 kg (8 lbs 12 oz) with the fish caught in coastal waters off Islamorada, Florida in March 2015. They are daytime foragers spending 80% of their time in search of food and primarily scraping algae and small organisms off rocks. They are protogynous hermaphrodites with spawning occurring in large aggregations. Externally fertilized eggs are pelagic but quickly settle to the bottom and hatch within twenty-four hours. The Blue Parrotfish is poorly studied with very limited information available about their lifestyle and behavioral patterns including specific details on age, growth, longevity, movement patterns, diet, habitat use, and reproduction.
The Blue Parrotfish is a resident of all Mexican waters of the Atlantic Ocean including the Gulf of Mexico and the east coast of the Yucatán Peninsula in the Caribbean. They are less abundant in the northern parts of the Gulf of Mexico.
The Blue Parrotfish is the only Parrotfish with a uniform blue color and therefore cannot be confused with any other species.
From a conservation perspective the Blue Parrotfish is currently considered to be of Least Concern with stable, widely distributed populations, however most likely they will be reclassified as Near Threatened within the next 10 years. Loss of habitat (coral reefs and mangroves) and overfishing make their long-term survival of concern. Historically they have been an important food fish throughout the Caribbean being harvested by subsistence and commercial fishermen using nets and traps, however, they are known to contain ciguatoxin.