Fourspot butterflyfish
A butterflyfish that is dark brown above and yellow-orange below, with two white spots on each side of the upper body.
The fourspot butterflyfish is a butterflyfish of Pacific islands, recorded from the Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan and the Marianas east to Hawaii, the Marquesas and the Pitcairn Islands. It is largely absent from the continental coasts and large island groups of the western Pacific. The upper half of the body is dark brown and the lower half is yellow to orange, and on each side of the dark upper body there are two white spots, one above the other towards the back, which give the species its name. An orange bar edged in black runs through the eye.
It is a fish of shallow, exposed outer reefs, most often seen in less than 15 metres where there is surge and the coral is dominated by low, sturdy colonies. It feeds largely on the polyps of cauliflower corals of the genus Pocillopora, and pairs are usually found moving between heads of that coral. It tends to be wary, and keeps more distance from a diver than most of its relatives do.
Because of the depth and the water movement where it lives, it is seen more often at the start or end of a dive, or while snorkelling over the reef top, than during the deeper part of a dive on the slope.
Where to find:
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.
