A yellow-tailed snapper that gathers in loose groups under overhangs and in the shade of large boulders.
To 71 cm. Rosy red on the head and front of the body, shading to bright orange-yellow over the rest, with mainly yellow or orange fins. There is a bluish horizontal streak below the eye, which is the mark to check. The forehead is steep, the snout somewhat pointed, and there are large canines at the front of the jaw. Juveniles have a dark stripe along the side that fades with age.
Three eastern Pacific snappers are confused with it. The colorado snapper is uniformly reddish without the yellow rear body. The Pacific dog snapper is much bulkier, dark bronze-grey, with far larger canines. The barred pargo has bold dark vertical bars.
By day it forms dense stationary schools in the lee of pinnacles, under overhangs and in the mouths of caves, all facing into the current. At night the school breaks up and the fish hunt alone on fish, shrimp, crab and molluscs. It lives between 3 and 60 m over hard bottom, and it is unusually tolerant of fresh water for a snapper, entering estuaries and mangroves. It is not threatened, and Revillagigedo has been entirely closed to fishing since 2017. Large fish in some parts of the eastern Pacific carry a ciguatera risk.
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.