Humphead Parrotfish Essay

Imagine a cool drink in your hand, sand in your toes, listening to the ocean waves hit up against the beach. Don’t you ever wonder how it all came to be? Who do you thank for your favorite beach getaway? You don’t have to look much further from the shore. Only a couple of miles away or maybe even closer the humphead parrotfish can be found chomping on yummy rock and coral with their hard teeth to get their main meal of choice algae. The fish play a large part in the erosion of the reef. The rock and coral they swallow emerges later as a fine sand and overtime that sand builds up to form an island. The islands created through the fish then become a popular tourist destination for fun and realization. Now how can just one fish make an island? Well parrotfish can produce a lot of sand pretty quickly in fact many of the large parrotfish produce

Scientists can determine this by looking at the grains of sand on beaches. Not all islands are the fish’s poop some of it might be some species of sponges that bore into coral reefs that create different sediment on the beach. However, sponges that bore into the coral reefs and create sand are rare. Another rare but possible way to create sand is sea urchins creating sediment but the sediment wasn’t as correct in size as the normal sand we see on the beach. Scientists then determined after factoring all the possibilities of sand creation and the buildup of islands, that 85% of the white beaches we see in photos everyday are the feces of parrotfish. An island that can thank its entirety of being created is Maldives. For this reason, it is even more important for people to care about the well being of the parrotfish and that the population size stays large. Not only should more islands be created but also to maintain islands to still be present in the future. With sea level rise eating away at islands, the parrotfish are even more important than