Scrawled butterflyfish

Scrawled butterflyfish

The body of the Meyer’s butterflyfish is oval and laterally compressed as with all Butterflyfish. The juveniles as seen above have a less complex coloration than the adults as seen below. The body has an overall white color and a series of fairly thick vertical black lines run down the mouth and facial area running through the eye. A curved black line runs across the gill plate and around the body going just short of the caudal fin. Behind the gills a series of lines curve upwards. On the adults the fins are a bright yellow with a dotted orange line on the rear of the dorsal fin. Some specimens have more orange dots just above the gill plates.

Juvenile Meyer’s butterflyfish in Tanzania are usually seen singularly close to branching corals. They are quick to go into hiding and are fairly difficult to photograph. The adults are occasionally seen on open reefs with good growths of coral. Adults tend to mainly be in pairs and feed by themselves rather than joining up with other species of butterflyfish. They are reclusive and go into hiding if they think they are being followed. They can be annoyingly difficult to photograph well because of their shy nature.

Meyer’s butterflyfish are found from from Durban in South Africa, northwards up the African coast to the Red Sea and across the Indo Pacific area up to Japan in the north and to the south of Australia, across to Hawaii . They have also been found in the Galapagos Islands and in the Revillagigedo Islands (Mexico). They have been found from depths of 2 to 30 meters. In Tanzania they seem more common from depths of 12 to 18 meters.