A small pale cardinalfish with a dark ring right around the tail base - a band, not a spot, and the difference is what names the genus.
Seven centimeters (3 in), living deep inside branching coral heads in shallow lagoons and rarely coming out where a camera can see it whole. It shares those colonies with coral gobies, guard crabs and shrimps, all of them relying on the same branches.
At night it works the sand and rubble around the colony for small crustaceans, but it does not go far - unlike the bigger cardinalfish that commute across open bottom, a fish this size stays close to cover.
Males brood in the mouth. In a species this small the clutch is a few dozen eggs, and the male carries them for about a week without eating, which is a serious investment for an animal that has to keep hiding at the same time.
- pale fish with a dark ring encircling the tail base, not a spot
- dark bar through the eye
- in small groups deep inside branching coral
- length up to 7 cm
