The juvenile is white with an orange saddle and a black eyespot; the male looks unrelated.
Terminal males reach about 80 cm and are green with pink to salmon scale edges, a pink band across the snout and green fin margins. Initial-phase fish are dark grey with fine pale speckling. The juvenile is the stage most divers photograph: white with a broad orange band across the head and a black eyespot ringed in orange on the front of the dorsal fin. Older literature places the species in Cetoscarus bicolor, which is now restricted to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean.
Juveniles hold to a single small patch of rubble or coral and can be relocated on successive dives; adults range widely, scraping algae and dead coral. As with other parrotfishes the sex change from female to terminal male comes with a complete change of pattern, so a site can appear to hold three species that are one. Recorded from about 3 to 35 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.