Passer Angelfish

The Passer Angelfish (Holacanthus passer), also called the king angelfish, is a large angelfish of the eastern Pacific, from the Gulf of California to Peru including the Galapagos. Adults are dark blue to grey with a single bright vertical white bar behind the head, a yellow tail and pectoral fins, and orange tones on the face. It is one of the few large angelfish of the eastern Pacific and a conspicuous reef fish there, sometimes acting as a cleaner. Juveniles show additional bars and orange that fade with age.

Identify the Passer Angelfish by:

• A dark blue to grey body with a single vertical white bar behind the head.
• A yellow tail and yellow pectoral fins.
• Orange tones around the face; deep angelfish body, ~25-35 cm.

The single white bar on a dark body with a yellow tail is distinctive within its eastern-Pacific range.

Passer Angelfish inhabit rocky reefs and rocky-coral areas from the shallows to about 30 m in the eastern Pacific, from the Gulf of California south to Peru and around the Galapagos. They favour structured rocky reefs with caves and ledges and are often seen in the region's characteristic cooler tropical waters.

Passer Angelfish are diurnal omnivores that feed on sponges, algae, plankton, and small invertebrates, and juveniles and some adults will pick parasites from other fishes as facultative cleaners. They occur singly, in pairs, or small groups near rocky structure. As protogynous hermaphrodites, a dominant male oversees a group of females, and pairs spawn by rising into the water column to release eggs.