The Oriental butterflyfish is a bright yellow fish of rocky reefs in the western Pacific, with a black bar through the eye followed by a white bar. It handles colder water than most butterflyfish and lives around Japan, southern Korea, and southern China, but not in US waters. It reaches about 8 in (20 cm) long and is rarely seen in the aquarium trade.
Appearance
- Appearance
- A round, flat-bodied fish that is yellow all over, including the fins, with thin brown lines along the sides. A broad black bar runs through the eye, with a slightly narrower white bar just behind it. Juveniles have a black on the rear of the dorsal fin that fades with age.
Look-alikes
The Hong Kong butterflyfish has slanted brown lines on its sides, a black patch on the forehead, and a black edge on the tail. The Oriental butterflyfish has straight, parallel lines, and its white bar behind the eye runs straight instead of bending.
Why they get mixed upBoth are yellow butterflyfish from the same region with a black eye bar followed by a white bar.
Where it lives
- Typical habitats
- Rocky reefs
- Coral reefs
- Tide pools
- Range
- Western Pacific: Japan, southern Korea, Taiwan, and the coasts of southern China and Vietnam. It does not occur in the wild in the United States.
- Preferred conditions
- Usually found 3–100 ft (1–30 m) deep on rocky reefs with algae and coral. Young fish stay in tide pools and sheltered shallow rocks. Off Japan it survives water as cool as 50 °F (10 °C).
Behavior
- Diet
- Grazes on filamentous algae and small bottom animals such as worms, small crustaceans, corals, and sea anemones.
- Social life
- Seen alone or in groups. Males and females pair up to spawn.
Name and classification
- About the name
- Older books may call it Chaetodon aureus or C. fallax.
Conservation
- IUCN Red List
- LCLeast ConcernLow risk of extinction
More species to explore
Record what you meet and build your own collection
Your photos are kept with their date and place, and you can fill regional albums one species at a time.