Common Name: Brown Sweetlips

Distribution: Common throughout the Solitary Islands Marine Park. Distributed throughout the Indo-West Pacific region: from the Red Sea to Natal, South Africa (including Madagascar and the Comoro and Reunion islands); Gulf of Aden and the Persian Gulf eastward to Samoa, north to the Ryukyu Islands, south to Australia. In Australia recorded from Exmouth in Western Australia, across the tropical north, including the Gulf of Carpentaria and Torres Strait, south through the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland to around Sydney in New South Wales, and including Norfolk Island.

Ecological Notes: Frequent offshore reefs, sandbanks and near estuaries, small juveniles along sheltered sandy shorelines where they mimic dead leaves by drifting on their sides. Adults in protected inshore reefs to deep offshore, sometimes in small groups. Depth 8 – 25 m.

Additional Notes: Robust body, silver or brown in colour with a dark face and large lips. Rear margins of gill covers black. Usually shy and difficult to approach, often in small groups. Grows to 75 cm.

References: R. Stuart-Smith, G. Edgar, A. Green, I. Shaw, Tropical Marine Fishes of Australia. Reed New Holland Publishers, 2015. p.168.

Atlas of Living Australia website at https://bie.ala.org.au/search?q=Plectorhinchus+gibbosus. Accessed 01/07/18.

FishBase. Froese, R. and D. Pauly. Editors. 2018. World Wide Web electronic publication. https://fishbase.ca/summary/Plectorhinchus-gibbosus.html. Accessed 01/07/18.