Rock Beauty

The rock beauty is found in the western Atlantic, where it ranges from Bermuda and the waters off Georgia and Florida through the Caribbean Sea and the coasts of South America to as south as Rio de Janeiro. It is uncommon and localized in the Gulf of Mexico, where it only occurs at the Flower Gardens Banks National Marine Sanctuary off Texas and off Veracruz and on the Campeche Bank in Mexico.

Adult rock beauties feed largely on sponges but will also eat corals, zoantharians, bryozoans, gorgonians, tunicates and algae. It is also thought that they consume the mucus secreted by other fish.

The generic name Holacanthus comes from Ancient Greek ὅλος (hólos), meaning "full", and ἄκανθα (ákantha), meaning "spine"; the allusion was not explained by Lacépède, who erected the genus in 1802. The specific name tricolor means "three-colored" in Latin, and refers to the fact that adult rock beauties are predominantly yellow, black and red (the red coloration is, however, not prominent, as it only appears on some fins and the operculum margin of certain specimens).