A mid-sized predatory wrasse that shadows other feeding fish to steal what they flush.
To about 40 cm, pink-brown to olive with fine dark-edged scales, two or three orange-red lines running back and down from the eye across the cheek, and a pointed snout. It can shift colour rapidly between pale and heavily blotched, particularly when following another fish. The closely similar Oxycheilinus orientalis is smaller and has a more strongly barred body.
It takes small fish and crustaceans, and is a habitual follower: it will shadow a foraging goatfish, octopus or moray at a metre’s distance and take whatever escapes. Divers on muck sites see the same behaviour directed at them. Individuals often approach closely on their own account, which makes this one of the more cooperative wrasses for photography. Recorded from about 3 to 45 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.