Slippery dick

Description

The slippery dick is a slender wrasse of the family Labridae reaching about 35 cm. Two dark lengthwise stripes run along the body; the ground colour varies greatly with age and phase, from greenish and white to pink-purple tints. The species lives on coral and rock reefs, in seagrass and on sand flats of shallow water in the western Atlantic and the Caribbean. On the bottom it hunts snails, crabs, sea urchins, worms and other small bottom animals. At night and when threatened it quickly buries itself in the sand. Like many wrasses it is a protogynous hermaphrodite: animals begin as females and can later change into males.