Magenta front, yellow back, and gone before the camera is up.
To about 7 cm, magenta-purple over the front half and bright yellow over the rear, divided sharply at mid-body. The closely related Pictichromis porphyrea is entirely magenta and often shares the same ground. The colour division is abrupt in this species and often marked by a thin white line, where the unrelated Caribbean royal gramma blends one colour into the other.
It lives in and around rubble, coral crevices and overhangs on steep ground, feeding on small crustaceans, and moves in fast short darts between holes. It is common but seldom photographed well: it will not hold still in the open and is usually against a busy background. Working a single hole from a fixed distance and waiting produces more than following it. Recorded from about 5 to 50 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.
