It also occurs in the Galápagos Islands[4] as well as Japan, south to Australia and east to French Polynesia.

[2] Recently recorded in 2001 for the first time in the Mediterranean Sea off Israel, following an entry via the Suez Canal, it is now expanding northward in Levantine waters where it remains rare.

[1] Scarus ghobban can rotate their mandible bone at a high velocity; this allows them to function as a scraper and facilitate hydrological transport of fine sediments.

[9] While the species is captured in large numbers by fishermen for consumption and sale, and there is also a high amount of bycatch from other fisheries, it is not particularly targeted and appears not to be threatened at this point.

As other parrotfish, it is dependent on coral reefs to some degree, and is likely to suffer from the continued degradation of same.