A Red Sea coral feeder, yellow with fine dark lines and a dark rear, always in pairs and always on live coral.
To about 13 cm. An orange body with thin curved dark stripes, a head band connecting at the nape and throat, black around the mouth, and — the character — a solidly black anal fin and tail.
The melon butterflyfish is the fish it is separated from, and the anal fin does it: reddish-orange there with less black on both anal and tail, solidly black here. The ranges also do not overlap, this being a Red Sea and Gulf of Aden fish and that one an Indian Ocean one.
One to twenty metres on coral-rich seaward reef, in lagoons and bays. Adults are territorial and patrol a territory as a pair; juveniles stay on a single coral colony.
This is an obligate coral feeder, grazing polyps and anemone tentacles, which makes it directly vulnerable to bleaching. It is collected for aquariums, where it generally starves.
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.