Striped black and white with a tall first dorsal fin, under ledges in the same places as the spotted drum and often mistaken for it.
To about 23 cm. Whitish with three to five broad black stripes and narrow stripes between them, no dark bar between the eyes in the adult, and a submarginal white stripe on the soft dorsal.
The juvenile is the memorable form and the one people photograph: a small striped fish carrying a very tall sail-like first dorsal fin, with a bar across the snout between the eyes and two spots below it. Against the cubbyu, the spiny dorsal is high here and low there.
One to a hundred metres, usually three to thirty, sheltering on reef by day in groups of three to seven under ledges and feeding at night over sand, mud and rubble.
A 2022 revision revalidated Pareques lineatus for populations from the Caribbean south to Brazil, with P. acuminatus kept for the northern range, so a Caribbean record may belong to the other name.
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.