Yellow-dotted Butterflyfish

The yellow-dotted butterflyfish has a whitish body which is marked with diagonal lines of greyish spots. There is a vertical black band with yellow edges which runs through the eye and another vertical black band which runs from the dorsal fin, over the caudal peduncle and onto the anal fin. The dorsal, anal and anterior part of the caudal fin are yellow. The black bars are more obvious in juveniles but as they mature they fade and the underlying yellow colouration becomes more obvious and changing the apparent colour of the bands to brownish. The rear vertical band also grows longer with age and runs parallel to the base of the dorsal fin towards the eye band, nearly reaching it. It has 12 spines and 20–22 soft rays in its dorsal fin while the anal fin contains 3 spines and 18–19 soft rays. This small butterflyfish attains a maximum total length of 16 centimetres (6.3 in).

The yellow-dotted butterflyfish is found throughout the Indo-Malayan region from northern Java eastwards to the north coast of Papua New Guinea and northwards to Taiwan and on to the Ryukyu Islands and Kashiwa-jima in southern Japan.