The bright orange anemonefish with three white bars and heavy black edging. Separated from the false clownfish by the width of that black edging and by the spines in the dorsal fin.
To about 8 to 11 cm; sources disagree and most adults are under 9 cm. Bright orange with three white bars — head, middle and base of the tail — the middle one usually bulging forward towards the head. All the fins have heavy black margins, and that is the key feature.
The false clown anemonefish is near-identical in pattern and is the one that matters. Three things separate them. This species has thick conspicuous black borders on the fins and around the white bars, where the false clown has thin dark lines or none. It usually has ten dorsal spines to the false clown’s eleven. And in Australia geography settles it: the two do not overlap here, and on the Great Barrier Reef it is always this one. The Barrier Reef anemonefish has two bars, not three, and is brown.
It uses three host anemones and which one depends on the site: the giant carpet anemone on sheltered inshore reefs, the magnificent sea anemone on outer reefs, and the leathery anemone. It stays within centimetres of the tentacles in 1 to 15 m of water, and it is aggressive out of all proportion to its size, darting at a diver who lingers over the anemone. The largest fish in the group is the female; the male fans and mouths the eggs. It is not threatened, though aquarium collection increased sharply after the species became famous.
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.
