Pale covered in dark spots with yellow fins, resting under Red Sea ledges by day.
To about 50 cm, usually nearer 35. Yellowish-grey with a greenish back and a yellowish belly, the body and fins covered in rows of dark grey to blackish-brown spots, with fleshy but not swollen lips and pelvic fins longer than the pectorals.
Juveniles are strikingly different: light silver-grey with yellow fins and brown horizontal bands, which break up into the adult rows of spots at about ten to twelve centimetres.
The other Red Sea sweetlips are plain grey to dark and unmarked as adults, so the dense spotting on silver-grey with yellow fins settles an adult. A juvenile is harder, because juvenile Plectorhinchus albovittatus is also banded, and no separating character was found in the sources.
Five to fifty-five metres on coastal reefs, sand banks and near estuaries. Note that FishBase gives a depth range of 55 to 80 metres for it, which contradicts the shallow reef habitat every source including FishBase describes, and appears to be an error in that field. Large daytime aggregations hang below ledges and along coral slopes, stationary and slightly head-down, which is the standard sweetlips resting posture. It feeds mainly at night on smaller fish and crustaceans; juveniles use seagrass.
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.