Similar to the squirrelfish but with white triangles at the tips of the spiny dorsal fin, which is the way to separate them.
To about 35 cm, common at 25. Bright red or red-striped, sometimes blotched, with a long upper tail lobe and a long third anal spine.
The character is the dorsal fin: each membrane between the spines carries a white spot near its margin, one behind each spine tip. Those white triangles separate it from the Atlantic squirrelfish, whose membrane tips are reddish or translucent.
Nought to thirty-two metres on clear reef. Nocturnal, hanging near the mouths of caves and holes by day and moving onto sand and grass beds at night for crabs, shrimps, snails and brittle stars.
Ciguatera is reported.
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.