A dark butterflyfish with a yellow snout and a yellow tail bar, on subtropical reef on the east coast and at Lord Howe.
To about 21 cm. A purplish-black body with broad yellow submarginal bands on the dorsal, tail and anal fins, a yellowish-orange snout band and a distinct black forehead mark.
It is the only dark, near-black butterflyfish with yellow fin bands in Australian waters, and no source consulted names a confusion species.
Two to twenty metres on rich coral on outer and sheltered inner reefs, and also in estuaries and on algae-covered rocky reef, which is a wider tolerance than most of the family. It prefers live coral but persists on reefs without it. Alone or in pairs, and it forms larger aggregations at some sites, notably Lord Howe Island.
Its range runs from the far northern Great Barrier Reef south to Merimbula in New South Wales, plus Cocos Keeling and Lord Howe.
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.