Bumphead Parrotfish

Photo: Mark Rosenstein · CC BY-NC

Schools of bumphead parrotfish visit Daviqele Wall in the early morning, headbutting coral heads with their reinforced foreheads to access the organic matter within the coral skeleton. A single school can excrete hundreds of kilograms of white sand per year, and the sandy terraces at the base of the wall are partly the product of generations of parrotfish activity. These impressive fish — the largest parrotfish species, growing to 1.3 metres — are increasingly rare across the Indo-Pacific but remain relatively common in Kadavu's protected waters.