Fine chevron lines over white, and an extreme specialist: it lives on tabular Acropora and eats little else.
To about 18 cm. Pale and relatively elongate for a butterflyfish, marked with dark vertical chevrons, with a pale-edged black bar through the eye and a black tail carrying a broad yellow submarginal band. Juveniles have a black band running from the dorsal fin through the rear body to the anal fin, with yellow at the tail and pectoral fin bases.
The elongate body with chevrons plus that tail is diagnostic in the Maldives. The striped butterflyfish in the same water have no chevrons.
Two to thirty metres on tabular and staghorn Acropora on semi-protected seaward and lagoon reefs. It is strongly territorial and defends a patch of tabular Acropora against other butterflyfish; juveniles hide inside the branches.
This is the only butterflyfish on this site not rated Least Concern. It is listed as Near Threatened, and the reason is its diet: it is an obligate corallivore feeding only on Acropora polyps, particularly Acropora hyacinthus, so bleaching takes its food directly. It is near-impossible to keep in a tank.
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.