Pearly base colour with orange-brown stripes, bright blue iris, and half stripe from eye which sometimes joins stripe above. Stripes may break into spots towards the rear. Longer tail base and a deeper, more rounded body than most cardinalfishes. Juveniles have yellow tail base where the mid stripe ends in black spot, stripes are black rather than brown and appear more even, and body shape is more like a normal cardinalfish shape. Adults usually found around staghorn and other branching corals where they take shelter head-first among the branches.

• Max Size: 12 cm
• Depth: 1-20m
• Habitat: Coral Reef
• Habitat Generalisation Index: 6.5
  Also referred to as the SGI (Species generalisation index), this describes the habitat niche breadth of the species. Species with values less than 15 are found in a relatively narrow range of reef habitat types (specialists), while those over 25 may be found on most hard substrates within their range (generalists). Learn more here

• IUCN Threat Status: Least Concern
• Occurrence: Frequent (19% of sites)
  Occurrence describes how often the species is found on surveys within its distribution. It is calculated as the % of reef sites surveyed by RLS divers across all the ecoregions in which the species has been observed
• Abundance: Many (17 per transect)
  Abundance is calculated as the average number of individuals recorded per RLS transect, where present.