Five dark bars and black bands along both tail lobes, which is where the name comes from, in shoals above Red Sea reef.
To about 19 cm. White to silvery with five black body bars, and the mark that names it: a dark streak running along both lobes of the forked tail.
The Indo-Pacific sergeant shares the Red Sea and its tail lobes are plain.
One to twenty metres on inshore and offshore coral or rocky reef, favouring shallow reef flats and crests with tall soft corals or hydroid colonies. It feeds on zooplankton and algae, often in groups well above the bottom, and it also tends nests among rocks and coral ledges.
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.