A slender snapper with a yellow stripe from the snout to a deeply forked yellow tail. It feeds up in the water rather than on the bottom.
To about 86 cm and 4 kg. Slender and pointed at the head, blue to violet above scattered with yellow spots, whitish below with narrow reddish and yellow stripes. A bright yellow band runs from the tip of the snout through the eye and widens at the rear to take in the whole tail base and the whole deeply forked tail. Juveniles carry the same band.
Nothing inshore is confusable. The widening yellow band onto an entirely yellow forked tail is unique in the region.
Nought to a hundred and eighty metres, usually ten to seventy, over reef and soft bottom including seagrass. It is the one Caribbean snapper habitually seen well up in the water column above the reef by day rather than resting under a ledge, which is how most divers meet it. It feeds at night on plankton and bottom animals; juveniles are over seagrass and weed and feed mainly on plankton. Spawning runs year round with regional peaks.
Listed as Data Deficient, the only one of the Atlantic snappers here not rated Least Concern. Florida sets a 12 inch minimum. 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.