Olive with pale bars and yellow fins, hanging in loose groups under ledges and around mangrove roots by day.
To about 65 cm, though the published maxima run from 61 to 79. Olive-grey to brownish above with a yellow cast, eight narrow pale vertical bars that fade in large adults, a blue line along the cheek below the eye that also fades with age, and bright yellow fins. The canines in the upper jaw are large enough to see.
Two fish to rule out, and one character each. The grey snapper has neither yellow fins nor a blue cheek line. The dog snapper has a pale white triangle below the eye, which this fish does not.
One to about sixty metres, in clear water over reef, seagrass and sand. It forms loose resting groups by day around elkhorn coral, gorgonians and wreck structure, hanging just off the bottom, and disperses at night to hunt fish, shrimp, crabs, worms, snails and octopus. Juveniles are on sand and mud in lagoons and mangroves.
Florida sets a 10 inch minimum, ten per day within the ten-fish snapper aggregate. Ciguatera is reported.
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.