White with two black bands and a long white pennant streaming off the back, cruising a drop-off in a pair - and endemic to this sea, which surprises most divers who assume so common a fish must be everywhere.
It is constantly confused with the Moorish Idol, and the difference is the face: the bannerfish has a short blunt snout and the idol has a long tube of one, with a yellow saddle across it. Once seen the two never look alike again.
The pairs are the point. These fish move as couples, feed together, turn together, and stay paired over long periods - and while they take plankton from the water column, they also work as cleaners when young, picking parasites off larger fish.
They hold no territory and range widely along a reef, which is why the same pair turns up at different points of one dive. Common, easy to approach, and one of the few genuinely local fish that a first-time visitor is guaranteed to photograph.
- white body with two broad black bands and a long white dorsal filament
- yellow tail and yellow rear dorsal fin
- blunt rounded snout, unlike the long snout of the Moorish Idol
- almost always in a pair
- length up to 18 cm
Why it's threatened
There appear to be no major threats to this species. Collection is limited and is not considered to be impacting the global population.
Threat classification from the IUCN Red List.
