California sheephead

Male and female California sheepheads have different color patterns and body shapes. Males are larger, with black tail and head sections, wide, reddish orange midriffs, red eyes, and fleshy forehead bumps. Female sheephead are silvery or dull pink with white undersides. Both sexes have white chins and large, protruding canine teeth that can pry hard-shelled animals from rocks or inflict nasty puncture wounds on skin divers. After powerful jaws and sharp teeth crush the prey, modified throat bones (a throat plate) grind the shells into small pieces. California sheephead can reach a size of 91 cm (3 ft) and a weight of 16 kg (35 lb). All sheepheads are born as females and eventually change to males at roughly 45 cm (1.5 ft). The age of the transition depends on environmental factors such as food supply. The species can live for over 50 years.

Home ranges in California sheephead vary greatly, and this variability can be attributed to differences in habitat shape (embayment versus contiguous coastline) and to natural habitat boundaries (deep, sandy expanses). It is found in rocky-reef areas 54% of the time, and within those areas, a greater percentage of daytime is found in high relief areas. Although their home ranges are thought of as particularly well defined, the size and fidelity may vary ontogenetically and seasonally and with habitat availability. Sheephead home ranges are relatively small, and the fish have a very high site attachment. They may select rocky areas with kelp most often due to the increased habitat complexity, which likely offers additional feeding opportunities and potential refuge from large predators. Sheephead generally are considered mainly a rocky-reef and kelp-bed associated species, but they occasionally frequent sand habitats in foraging forays.

The California sheephead is a monandric protogynous hermaphrodite and is a commercially and recreationally valuable labrid. It is a prominent species occupying the southern California rocky reef and kelp bed fish assemblage. Both the ecology and life history patterns of California sheephead have been shown to vary with local environmental conditions.

Feeding. The California sheephead is a carnivorous, epibenthic reef fish, foraging mostly in the daytime in sand-rock reef habitats. Its feeding territories are very productive and allow individuals to occupy small, permanent, economically defendable home ranges. As a large temperate wrasse, it is a predator of sea urchins and other benthic invertebrates and play a critical role in also regulating prey populations in kelp forests. Since it feeds heavily on urchins, it is consequently an important species for indirectly regulating kelp growth in southern California's coastal waters. However, it exhibits flexibility in prey selection if its main food source is not readily available at a particular time. Populations with diets dominated by crabs and sea urchins, however, reach larger sizes and mature and change sex at larger sizes than populations that consume higher proportions of bivalves, barnacles, and bryozoans. …

Bodianus is New Latin. Pulcher is the Latin word for beautiful. In French, the fish is called the labre Californien (lit. 'Californian wrasse'), and in Spanish it is called the vieja de California (lit. 'Old woman of California').