A small gray-brown damselfish with a clean yellow tail and a white spot at the rear base of the dorsal fin, reaching about 6 cm (2.4 in). It hovers in loose aggregations a meter or so above coral heads and rubble, dropping back to cover in unison whenever something passes.
Feeding is on plankton taken from the current, which is why these groups sit where water accelerates over an obstruction. Males clear a patch of hard surface, court passing females with a jerky swimming display, and then guard the eggs stuck to the rock until they hatch - a pattern shared across the family and the reason a damselfish half the size of your hand will charge a diver's mask in breeding season. Common on shallow reef here, and easy to overlook precisely because it is everywhere.
The genus. Neopomacentrus Allen 1975 - neo- (new). ETYFish
The species. Neopomacentrus flavicauda Fricke & Allen 2021 - flavus (yellow) + oura (tail). ETYFish
- gray-brown body with a clean yellow tail
- small white spot at the rear base of the dorsal fin
- hovers in loose groups a meter above the bottom
- length up to 6 cm
