Checkerboard wrasse
Amazing fact
An adult checkerboard wrasse has black spots between the scales of its white body, forming a checkerboard pattern.
Australian Museum
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An illustration based on the real animal.
A little discovery to share.
An adult checkerboard wrasse has black spots between the scales of its white body, forming a checkerboard pattern.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Checkerboard wrasse
- Scientific name
- Halichoeres hortulanus
- Japanese name
- トカラベラ
- Group
- Ocean animals
- Order
- Labriformes
- Family
- Labridae
- Genus
- Halichoeres
A fish that lives from the Izu Islands, Wakayama and the Ryukyu Islands to Taiwan and across wide areas of the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
How the Checkerboard wrasse lives
Young fish tend to stay in dark places such as rocky shelters and are usually seen alone. Adults live on reefs facing the open sea. It mainly eats sand-dwelling snails, bivalves, hermit crabs, polychaete worms and small fish.
宇久井ビジターセンターAustralian MuseumBasic data
- Range
- Izu Islands, Ogasawara Islands, Ryukyu Islands, Indo-Pacific (except Hawaii and Easter Island), and elsewhere
Where the Checkerboard 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
- トカラベラ
- 简体中文
- 圃海海猪鱼
- 繁體中文
- 雲斑海豬魚
- Español
- Lalo ajearezado
- Français
- Tamarin
- Deutsch
- Schachbrett Junker
- Português (Brasil)
- Bodião-mármore
- Italiano
- Tordo scacchiera
- العربية
- Muesy
- Bahasa Indonesia
- Keling perak
- Русский
- Индоокеанский тамарин
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 — トカラベラChecked: 2026-11-04
- Australian Museum — Checkerboard Wrasse, Halichoeres hortulanus (Lacepede, 1801)Checked: 2026-11-07
- 宇久井ビジターセンター — トカラベラ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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