Often they exibit a mottled pattern such as the one pictured above while others may have a single light stripe or others more of a barred pattern.
The young ballan wrasse are usually a emerald green and live in shallow water among seaweed in rock pools. Where as the larger fish typically live in rock places to depths about 50 feet. Ballan wrasse are a large wrasse, the largest of all european wrasses and range in the North Atlantic from Norway South to Morocco plus the Azores and the Canary Islands.
Ballan wrasse are strange in that they are one fish species that are able to change sex during their life. They always start life as females but might become males later in life. The change only occurs when the male in of an area dies and then the most dominant female becomes the new male. The sex unlike in most other fish that exibit this trait don't also undergo any appearance changes. So it is impossible to tell from the fishes markings if it is CURRENTLY male are female.