Silver with four bright blue stripes, in dense stationary schools over Maldivian reef by day.
To about 30 cm. Elongate and compressed, bright yellow with four blue stripes on the sides, one of them running below the eye, and a plain white belly.
The common bluestripe snapper is abundant in the Maldives, shares the four blue stripes, and schools with this fish. The belly settles it: plain white here, white with faint grey stripes there. That is the single most useful character for the pair and the sources are explicit about it.
Ten to thirty metres over coral and rock, gathering around outcrops and coral formations during daylight, often mixed in with the bluestripe snapper. It takes smaller fish and crustaceans.
Ratings are per location: 1 means found on most dives that look for it, 5 means a handful of records. Where enough dives have been logged the figure is calculated from them; otherwise it is an editorial estimate, and says so. We publish habitat and destination, not the dive site.