Named for the large ringed spot near the tail, which with the dark bar over the real eye makes the fish appear to be facing the other way.
To about 15 cm. Pale yellow to whitish with a grey bar running from the nape through the eye to the chest, thin black chevrons over the whole body, and one large black white-ringed eyespot below the rear of the soft dorsal, which is the name and the identification. Juveniles are yellowish with two eyespots, one on the soft dorsal and one below it on the body.
Against the banded butterflyfish, four black bars against none. Against the spotfin, that fish has only a small black spot at the rear corner of the dorsal fin, not a large body eyespot.
Two to twenty metres over reef, with juveniles in mangroves and seagrass. Alone or in monogamous pairs, and easily approached by divers. It eats zoanthids, polychaetes, gorgonians and tunicates rather than living coral.
Ciguatera is reported from it.
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.