lauttimur.com - Parrotfish are colorful fish that live in tropical region and inhabiting coral reef ecosystem. They spend about 90% of the day to eating and digest algae off coral reef. This almost-constant eating performs the essential task of cleaning the reefs which helps the corals stay healthy and thriving. Parrotfish have unusual digestive system than other fish, they have teeth inside their throat. These teeth works for breaks down coral chunk into the white sand. This process is called bioerosion and it is helps to control the population of algae in coral reef ecosystem and also create a new surface for baby coral to attach and grow. Scientists estimate that a single parrotfish can poop out more than 2,000 pounds of sand each year!

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This fish is called by the name parrotfish because they have a bird-like beaks. They use this ‘beak’ to bite the hard coral in order to extract the algae in it. Parrotfish are also very colorful and come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Here are some species of parrotfish, like princess parrotfish, green humphead parrotfish, bleeker’s parrotfish, midnight parrotfish and queen parrotfish. 

The largest species of the parrotfish is the green humphead, this fish has been known to grow to lengths slightly more than four feet. The smallest species is the blue lip parrotfish, which grows to about five inches long. They exist in a variety of colors, the most common being blues or greens with accents of pink, purple, yellow, or red. Parrotfish coloring can vary within a single species due to age and gender.

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This fish have an important role as a part of coral reef ecosystems. They spend most of their day to eating algae and sleep at night among the coral. Their constant feeding helps the coral reefs healthy and thriving. They will use their beak to scrap an algae from a coral and digest it. The coral bit that parrotfish digested will come out into sand.