Six-Lined Soapfish

Grammistes sexlineatus is a middle sized fish, which can grow to a maximum length of 30 cm. Its background body color is dark brown with a maximum of six white to yellow horizontal lines. The number of lines depends on the maturity of the fish. Juveniles have white to yellow dots on a dark background until an approximate size of 17.5 mm. Thereafter, the points gradually become lines. At a length of 5 cm, these soap fish have three horizontal lines. Only from 8 cm long that the soapfish gets the six distinctive horizontal lines. Note that in adult specimens close to the maximum size, these lines tend to sever to form small strokes and points.