Described in 2024 from San Benedicto and known only from this archipelago. The qualifier separates it from the Indo-Pacific tail-spot wrasse.
To about 12 cm. Described in 2024 from eight specimens, all taken at El Canyon on San Benedicto in twenty-one to twenty-two metres, with photographs from Socorro in 2013 the only other record. Juveniles and initial-phase adults carry a large oblong black spot with a yellow upper edge in the middle of the dorsal fin, on a white body with a red lateral stripe; initial-phase adults are pinkish grey above with a brick-red band from the snout to the tail base and a black crescent on the gill flap. The terminal male has a vermilion head grading to orange-brown, a white patch over the middle of the belly, and a prominent black patch across the rear of the tail base and the base of the tail fin.
The Socorro wrasse is the other wrasse endemic to these islands and the black dorsal-fin spot separates them: present here in juveniles and initial-phase adults, absent there. In terminal phase use the black tail-base patch instead. It lives over volcanic gravel and rubble, the juveniles close to boulders and light gravel and the larger fish a little higher off the bottom. The describing paper calls it a particularly elusive wrasse whose adults are difficult to approach, which is why so little of it has been photographed.
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.