The largest dottyback on this ground, deep red in the male with a ringed eye.
A dottyback to about 20 cm, twice the length of the small species on the same ground and heavier in the body. Males are deep red to orange-red with rows of small dark spots that run as fine lines along the flank, a pale belly and a dark ring around the eye. Females and young fish are duller, grey-brown to olive, with the spotting still visible and the eye ring less marked. The long dorsal fin and the rounded tail give it a shape closer to a small grouper than to a wrasse at a distance.
It lives on rubble slopes, on the broken margins of reef and around coral heads on silt, and it is territorial and quick. The pattern of movement is a run of two or three metres in the open followed by a stop against cover, repeated, so an approach usually produces a fish that is either much closer than expected or gone. Feeding is on small fishes and crustaceans.
Recorded from Indonesia and the Philippines north to southern Japan, from a few metres to about 40 m. On muck sites it is most often met where rubble meets sand rather than out on open sediment, and a red fish moving fast against dark ground is usually this species before it is anything else.
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.
