A soldierfish of the eastern Pacific offshore islands, in caves and under overhangs by day.
To about 18 cm. Ovate and deep-bodied with a blunt snout, a convex forehead and a very large eye, red or red with a yellow tint, with a dark edge to the gill cover and no black bar behind it.
The absence of that black opercular bar, and of the orange dorsal fin, separates it from the bigscale soldierfish.
Five to fifty metres on rocky reef, sheltering by day and taking pelagic crustaceans, zooplankton and fish larvae.
It is listed as Vulnerable and is restricted to the Revillagigedo Islands and Clipperton Atoll. FishBase and STRI both call it the yellow soldierfish; the name used here follows the island.
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.