Fishes - Australian Museum Fish Site

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Pearl-scaled Angelfish
Centropyge vroliki (Bleeker, 1853)

Pearl-scaled Angelfish
A Pearl-scaled Angelfish at a depth of 24m, Mantis Reef, Wreck Bay, far northern Great Barrier Reef, November 2001. View larger image.

The Pearl-scaled Angelfish is brown to grey-green anteriorly and black posteriorly. The anal fin, caudal fin and posterior region of the dorsal fin have blue margins. The iris, pectoral fin base and opercular (glossary) margin are orange.

This species grows to 12cm in length.

Pearl-Scaled Angelfish are most common on rock or rubble bottoms of offshore reef slopes and lagoons, especially those with rich algal and sponge fauna.

It is found in depths from 1m to 25m.

The Pearl-Scaled Angelfish feeds on algae and sponges.

It occurs in tropical marine waters of the Indo-West Pacific, from Christmas Island, throughout South-east Asia and Micronesia, north to Japan, south to Australia and east to the Marshall Islands.

In Australia it is known from off north-western Western Australia and the northern Great Barrier Reef, Queensland, south to the central coast of New South Wales, and Lord Howe Island.

View a map of the collecting localities of specimens in the Australian Museum Fish Collection.

The Pearl-scaled Angelfish resembles the juvenile Mimic Surgeonfish (view fact sheet), but can be distinguished by the presence of a large spine on the lower preopercular (glossary) margin.

Further reading

  1. Allen, G.R. 1997. Marine Fishes of Tropical Australia and South-east Asia. Western Australian Museum. Pp. 220.
  2. Allen, G.R., Steene, R. & M. Allen. 1998. A Guide to Angelfishes & Butterflyfishes. Odyssey Publishing/Tropical Reef Research. Pp. 250.
  3. Myers, R.F. 1999. Micronesian Reef Fishes. Coral Graphics. Pp. 330.
  4. Randall, J.E., Allen, G.R. & R.C. Steene. 1997. Fishes of the Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea. Crawford House Press. Pp. 251.
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