Yellowbanded Sweetlips

Description

A pale grey sweetlips fading to white below, with yellowish lips, diagonal black stripes on the upper sides (sometimes broken up into spots), yellow dorsal, anal and caudal fins with black spots, and yellow pectoral and pelvic fins with a red anterior blotch.
Juveniles and subadult fish have black horizontal stripes along the body that become increasingly diagonal with growth. Caudal fin slightly rounded in juveniles, truncate in adults. Colour of juveniles with few horizontal to slightly oblique dark brown bands which subdivide with age until the body appears to be dark chocolate brown above, with a network of fine white lines running up and back, the broad brown bars breaking up into smaller and smaller spots on lower sides; belly white; lips and fins bright yellow, anal and caudal fins dotted with black; pectoral fins with a splash of bright crimson or scarlet red at the base.

Distribution

Western Pacific: from Ryukyu Islands to Ogasawara Islands to the Great Barrier Reef and New Caledonia.

Habitat

Found in deep inner to outer reef habitats. Occurs singly or in aggregations along coral slopes of clear lagoon and seaward reefs. Juveniles solitary on shallow protected reefs. Generally nocturnal, feeding on benthic invertebrates in open sand flats and seagrass beds at night and conspicuously rests during the day. At Palau, it aggregates to spawn around new moon. Taken by handline and spear. Marketed fresh, a small quantity is salted.