Orange front, blue rear, divided along a clean curve.
To about 28 cm, with an orange-yellow head, chest and pectoral fins separated by a clean curved edge from a deep blue rear body speckled with pale blue dots, a blue mask through the eye and a yellow tail. Juveniles are dark blue with concentric white and pale blue lines, like the juveniles of the other large Pomacanthus here, and are hard to separate from them without a good look at the tail markings.
It is a species of sheltered inshore reef and lagoon slopes rather than exposed outer wall, and occurs regularly on the coral sections of muck sites. Adults are usually in pairs, feeding on sponges and tunicates in and under coral. It is shy and works round the far side of structure when approached, so photographs generally come from waiting rather than following. Recorded from about 3 to 40 m.
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.