The_Humphead_Wrasse

The Humphead Wrasse The Humphead Wrasse, Cheilinus undulatus The Humphead wrasse, Cheilinus undulatus, is the largest member of the family Labridae and widely distributed across the reefs of the Indo-Pacific. It is found from the Red Sea and African coast, across the Indian Ocean and much of the Pacific, north to southern Japan and the coast of southern China, and south to New Caledonia. In English it is mostly commonly referred to as the Humphead, Maori or Napoleon wrasse. Fishery management The species has a high economic value and is a special favorite of both the live reef food fish trade and with recreational divers.The Humphead wrasse is vulnerable to fishing due to its long life and late sexual maturation (which occurs at approximately 50 cm total length and 5 years of age). This means that its life history is one that involves slow replacement (and hence slow recovery from fishing) rates. Because of its high value as food, it is heavily sought by fishers and traders. As part of the live food fish market, its value is likely to increase with rarity, so fishers will continue to fish this species even as its numbers decline. Humphead wrasse fisheries are mostly unmanaged and, fish, wrasse, humphead, species, trade, reef, live, food, kong, hong, vulnerable, particularly, local, capture, value, market, little, fishers, cm, wild, very, traders, status, southern, size, since, sex, part, pacific, occurs, numbers, monitoring, means, management, likely, life