The commonest anthias on Indonesian and Philippine slopes; the male carries a red mark on the cheek.
Females reach about 9 cm and are olive-green to pale yellow with a yellow-edged tail. Males reach about 12 cm, turn violet-blue with a red-magenta band running from the eye across the cheek to the pectoral fin base, and develop elongated pelvic fins. It is the anthias most consistently present on the slopes of the Indonesian and Philippine destinations, more so than the scalefin anthias which dominates on stronger current.
Harems of a male and ten to thirty females feed on zooplankton a metre or two above coral and drop into it when a predator passes. All fish begin as females and the dominant one changes sex when the male is lost. Photographs are easier at the up-current edge of an aggregation, where the fish face a fixed direction. Recorded from about 5 to 40 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.
