Eightband Butterflyfish

The eightband butterflyfish has a flat, circular disk-shaped body with a slightly pointed snout. The body is white turning yellowish towards the belly and is marked with 7 black stripes over the head and the flanks. One runs centrally along the snout and another as a clear black margin to the dorsal and anal fins. The third line reaches on to the pelvic fin. All of the fins are yellow. There is a white ringed black spot on the caudal peduncle. Some specimens have black or brownish horizontal bars connecting the rear pairs of vertical bars. The background colour is also dependent on the environment inhabited by the fish, with paler, creamier fish in clear waters over coral reefs and the yellower fish being associated with less clear water coloured green by algae near river mouths. There are 10–12 spines and 17–19 soft rays in the dorsal fin while the anal fin has 3–4 spines and 14–17 soft rays. This relatively small species of butterflyfish attains a maximum total length of 12 centimetres (4.7 in).

The eightband butterflyfish is found in the eastern Indian Ocean and the western Pacific Ocean from the Maldives, India and Sri Lanka east to the Solomon Islands, north to southern Japan and south to the Scott Reef in Western Australia.