Situated immediately to the rear of the pectoral fin they have a vertical blue stripe with red margins.

[1] However, global warming may be allowing ornate wrasse to extend its range northwards and it has increasingly been collected in the Ligurian Sea[7] and off Provence.

[5] The ornate wrasse occurs in on rocky areas where there are growths of algae and Posidonia sea grass beds, it is found from 0 to 50 metres (0 to 164 ft).

The older and larger solitary males are fewer in numbers as they suffer from a greater predation pressure.

[8] The ornate wrasse is a quarry species for local fisheries in the eastern Mediterranean and in the Macaronesian archipelagoes, it is fished for using both hook and line and traps.

[1] The ornate wrasse was originally formally described in 1758 as Labrus pavo by Carolus Linnaeus in Volume X of the Systema Naturae and the type locality was given as Syria.