Blue-throat Trigger

About

The blue-throat trigger (Xanthichthys mento) is one of the more interesting triggers available to saltwater hobbyists, standing apart from its more notoriously destructive relatives in some genuinely useful ways. Males are the showier sex, displaying a vivid blue patch at the throat and a boldly patterned body with a reddish tail that gives rise to one of its alternate names. Females are more subdued but still attractively marked. In the wild, this species has a wide antitropical distribution across the Pacific, turning up around oceanic islands from Japan and Hawaii down to Easter Island and Pitcairn, as well as along some continental coastlines. Rather than lurking around the rockwork the way many triggers do, blue-throats are found schooling above drop-offs in open water, picking zooplankton from the current. A behavior that hints at why they tend to be somewhat less destructive to tankmates and corals than other members of the family. That said, they are still genuinely territorial, and you will want to choose tankmates that can hold their own. Crustaceans are best kept out of the picture entirely. With reasonable planning around compatibility, this is actually a manageable species for hobbyists who do not yet have years of marine experience, and with proper care it can live for decades.