[3] The upper end of the pectoral fin base shows black saddle-shaped markings while they are young adults.

[2] This species lives in the western Atlantic Ocean from Brazil in the south, north to Florida and the Bahamas.

[3] Sparisoma chrysopterum was first described as Scarus chrysopterus in 1801 by the German naturalists Marcus Elieser Bloch (1723-1799) and Johann Gottlob Theaenus Schneider (1750-1822) with the type locality given as "tropical western Atlantic".

[4] When William Swainson described the genus Sparisoma in 1839 he designated Sparus abildgaardi as its type species,[5] Although the specific name abildgaardi would appear to have precedence over chrysopterum, the latter is the more widely used name and the former was long mistakenly thought to be synonymous with Sparisoma viride.

[6] The name Sparus abildgaardi was suppressed by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature and Scarus chrysopterus was recognised as the type species.