Palette Surgeonfish

Photo: Zack · © all rights reserved

Palette surgeonfish gather around the cleaning station bommies in loose schools, performing cleaning duties on turtle skin while also grazing on algae across the reef flat. Their vivid blue and yellow colouration makes them highly visible against the coral, and they act as sentinels — scattering rapidly when predators approach and alerting other reef inhabitants to danger. The species is found throughout the Indo-Pacific but reaches unusually high densities at protected sites like Geruma where fishing pressure is absent.