Cocktail wrasse
Amazing fact
Young cocktail wrasses have a blue blotch at the front of the dorsal fin.
Museums Victoria（Fishes of Australia）
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An illustration based on the real animal.
A little discovery to share.
Young cocktail wrasses have a blue blotch at the front of the dorsal fin.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Cocktail wrasse
- Scientific name
- Pteragogus flagellifer
- Japanese name
- オハグロベラ
- Group
- Ocean animals
- Order
- Labriformes
- Family
- Labridae
- Genus
- Pteragogus
Where the name “Cocktail wrasse” comes from
Its scientific name comes from Latin words meaning “whip” and “to bear”. The name refers to the long, thread-like tips at the front of the dorsal fin in adults.
Museums Victoria（Fishes of Australia）It lives in Japanese seas from the Tsugaru Strait to Kyushu, and around the southern Korean Peninsula, Taiwan and southern China.
It lives in seaweed beds on coral and rocky reefs, and it blends in so well that it is hard to find.
Basic data
- Range
- Izu Islands, Seto Inland Sea, southern Korean Peninsula, Jeju, Taiwan, Guangdong, Pratas Islands, Spratly Islands, and elsewhere
Where the Cocktail wrasse has been recorded
Records: GBIF.org (CC0 and CC BY 4.0 records, retrieved 2026-11-07). Map: Natural EarthSee the records on GBIF
Watch wild animals from a distance. Do not touch or feed them, and take care of the places where they live.
Names around the world
- 日本語
- オハグロベラ
- 简体中文
- 长棘锯盖鱼
- 繁體中文
- 長棘鋸蓋魚
- Português (Brasil)
- Bodião-frondoso
- Русский
- Длиннопёрая дуимерия
Names come from Wikidata and iNaturalist records. Where a language has no recorded name, we use the scientific name.
Sources and how we check
- 鳥羽水族館 — オハグロベラChecked: 2026-11-04
- Museums Victoria（Fishes of Australia） — Cocktail Wrasse, Pteragogus flagellifer (Valenciennes 1839)Checked: 2026-11-07
We check each fact against its source. The illustrations simplify how the real animal looks.
The classification (class, order, family, genus) follows Wikidata records, checked against GBIF. Classifications can change as research goes on.
The basic data are the values given in each source. They vary with how the animal is measured, whether it is male or female, and whether it lives in the wild or in captivity.
This page was translated from the original Japanese with the help of AI.
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