The least fussy anemonefish: it will live in any of the ten host anemones.
To about 15 cm, with two white bars — one behind the head, one below the rear of the dorsal fin — on a body that ranges from orange-brown to nearly black depending on the host anemone and the locality. The tail is white or yellow and is often the clearest mark at distance. Colour variation within the species is wide enough that fish from two nearby sites can look unrelated; the two bars and the pale tail are constant.
It is the generalist of the group, recorded from more host anemone species than any other anemonefish - the bubble-tip anemone and Haddon’s carpet anemone among them - which is why it turns up on muck sites where the anemone is a lone specimen on open sand. Groups are a breeding pair plus smaller non-breeding fish; all begin as males and the largest becomes female. Eggs are laid on cleared rock at the anemone’s base and are guarded and fanned by the male, and a nest is worth returning to across a week. Recorded from the shallows to about 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.
