Galapagos Sheephead Wrasse

Photo: Billy Bensted-Smith · CC BY-NC

Endemic to the Galapagos and Cocos Island, the Galapagos sheephead wrasse is a large, conspicuous cleaner wrasse that maintains active cleaning stations on the rocky walls of Vicente Roca. Adults feature vivid contrasting coloration, and they are gregarious with divers, sometimes approaching to inspect their own reflections in camera ports. They are important ecological controllers of ectoparasite loads on larger fish including the sharks and rays that cruise the outer wall.