All yellow with a black cap and a long straight snout; common on any reef slope here.
Bright yellow to about 22 cm, with a black upper head and a white lower face, a black spot at the base of the anal fin, and a snout about a quarter of the body length. The very similar Forcipiger longirostris has a longer, thinner snout, a slightly smaller mouth and often a scattering of dark flecks on the chest; where the two occur together the snout length is the practical difference and it is not always obvious underwater.
It feeds by picking tube feet from sea urchins, pieces from feather stars and small crustaceans from coral, which requires a fine mouth rather than a strong one. Usually singly or in pairs, working steadily across the slope. Not especially shy, but it keeps moving. Recorded from a few metres to about 50 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.