---
title: Bluecheek Butterflyfish (Chaetodon semilarvatus)
scientific_name: Chaetodon semilarvatus
common_name: Bluecheek Butterflyfish
taxon: Butterflyfishes
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2023-12-22T22:33:06.661Z
updated: 2026-08-12T12:36:56.380Z
tags: Bluecheek Butterflyfish, Chaetodon semilarvatus, Butterflyfishes, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/butterflyfishes/bluecheek-butterflyfish
---

# Bluecheek Butterflyfish (*Chaetodon semilarvatus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Butterflyfishes (*Chaetodontidae*)
- **Size:** up to 23 cm
- **Depth:** 3-20 m
- **Diet:** Corallivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Coral-rich reef, hanging under table corals by day
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- deep lemon-yellow body ruled with fine orange vertical lines
- blue-gray patch behind and below the eye instead of a black eye bar
- almost always in a pair, and often several pairs together under one coral
- length up to 23 cm

Lemon-yellow, ruled with fine orange lines, with a blue-gray patch over the cheek where most butterflyfishes wear a black bar through the eye. Up to 23 cm (9 in), and one of the signature fish of this sea: it lives here and in the Gulf of Aden, and almost nowhere else.

It is nearly always in a pair. Pairs are long-term and travel together over a shared range, and a solitary individual is usually a fish that has lost its partner. Groups of pairs hang in the shade under table corals through the middle of the day, doing nothing much, which is when photographers find them stacked like plates.

It eats coral. The small protruding mouth is built to pick polyps and mucus off hard coral, plus small invertebrates, and that diet ties the fish to reef health directly - butterflyfish counts are a standard proxy for how much live coral a reef has left.

The blue cheek patch is worth a second look at night: it darkens and the whole fish takes on a blotched nocturnal pattern, so a torch beam finds an animal that looks nothing like the daytime one.

## Also known as

- **English:** bluecheek butterflyfish, Addis Butterflyfish, masked butterflyfish
- **Arabic:** Moscht
- **Hebrew:** פרפרון אפור-לחי
- **French:** Poisson-papillon jaune de mer Rouge, Chaetodon à demi masquè
- **Italian:** Pesce farfalla del Mar Rosso, Pesce farfalla mascherato
- **German:** Gelber Rotmeer-Falterfisch, Masken-Falterfisch
- **Spanish:** Pez Mariposa Enmascarado
- **Portuguese:** Peixe-borboleta-mascarado
- **Dutch:** Gele Koraalvlinder
- **Swedish:** Rödahavsfjärilsfisk
- **Czech:** klipka pološkrabošková
- **Russian:** Масковая рыба-бабочка
- **CA:** Peix papallona emmascarat
- **DA:** Blåkindet fanefisk

## Scientific synonyms

- *Chaetodon melanopoma* Playfair, 1867

## Range

Djibouti, Eritrea, Federal Republic of Somalia, Red Sea

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/butterflyfishes/bluecheek-butterflyfish)*
*Updated: August 12, 2026*