A turbid-water rabbitfish that schools around jetties and river mouths.
To about 42 cm, olive to grey-brown covered in orange-gold spots, with a bright yellow blotch below the rear of the dorsal fin that is the reliable field mark. Colour dulls markedly at night and in a stressed fish. The dorsal, anal and pelvic spines are venomous.
It is a species of turbid inshore water — estuaries, mangrove edges, jetties and silty reef — rather than clear coral, and is one of the few rabbitfishes regularly encountered on muck sites. It forms schools of tens to hundreds that move along the shoreline at dusk and disperse to feed on algae and seagrass. Recorded from about 1 to 25 m.
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.
