Large males develop a forehead bump and long trailing fin filaments; females are plain and much smaller.
To about 75 cm, and common at 35 to 45. Females and initial-phase fish are reddish grading to yellow on the rear body and tail, with a pair of blackish stripes, sometimes broken, along the upper half of the side. Terminal males are bluish-green with a red-brown head, a white lower jaw and a narrow yellow bar across the middle of the side, and large ones develop a pronounced hump between the eyes and trailing filaments on the dorsal and anal fins.
The harlequin wrasse is the other big hogfish in the Galapagos, and the paired black stripes settle it: this fish has them and the harlequin never does, only irregular blotching.
Five to seventy-five metres, usually five to twenty, over rock and sometimes sand. Solitary or in small groups. Males hold temporary spawning territories. It sleeps in crevices and caves at night and eats crabs, brittle stars, molluscs and urchins.
Taken commercially and sold fresh, and collected for aquariums.
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.