ABSTRACT
Parrotfishes are perhaps the most easily recognisable family of fish of the Red Sea reef. Many of the parrotfishes are brightly and gaudily coloured and they swim, like the wrasses to which they are in fact closely related, by up-and-down movements of their pectoral fins. Butterflyfishes and angelfishes are amongst the best known of coral-reef fishes because of their attractive shape and coloration, and in particular because they are highly prized as specimens for marine aquaria. Other butterflyfishes, such as the white-browed Chaetodon fasciatus feed on a variety of small soft-bodied invertebrates such as hydroids and polychaete worms. Coral-reef fishes can scarcely be described without mention of the damselfishes which, on Red Sea reefs at least, must constitute the most numerous family in terms of numbers of individuals. The surgeonfishes and rabbitfishes are fairly similar families which mainly feed by browsing on the algae growing on the reef.
