A small toxic puffer copied precisely by a harmless filefish.
To about 11 cm, white with four dark saddles across the back — the second and third extending well down the flanks — fine blue-brown spots on the lower body and a yellow tail. It is strongly toxic. The mimic filefish Paraluteres prionurus copies the pattern closely and is harmless; the filefish has a separate first dorsal spine and a longer, more flexible body, and swims with an undulating dorsal fin rather than the puffer’s stiff sculling.
The puffer feeds on algae, tunicates, coral and small invertebrates and moves in short hops across rubble and reef. It is common enough that a diver will usually see both the model and the mimic on the same dive, which makes it one of the better places on a reef to look at mimicry directly. Recorded from about 2 to 45 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.