Species: Stegastes pictus, Yellow-tipped Damselfish

Stegastes pictus (Castelnau, 1855)

Yellow-tipped Damselfish

Body moderately elongate, robust, compressed; 1 pair of nostrils; margin of preopercle serrated; margin of bone under eye serrated, without notch between it and the bone before it; mouth small, protrusible, opens at front; teeth in single row, long and close-set incisors; 18-21 gill rakers; a single continuous dorsal fin, XII, 15-16; anal fin II, 14-15; dorsal and anal fins extend past tail base, with angular lobes; pectoral rays 18-20; no projecting short spines at upper and lower base of tail fin; caudal fin bluntly forked, lobes with blunt points; scales are moderately large and rough; body scaled, head largely scaled (snout scaled to nostrils), as are the basal parts of the median fins; lateral line incomplete, ends under end of dorsal fin base; lateral-line scales 19-20.

Adult: dark grey-brown; pectoral fin and upper half of tail fin yellow; a blue line along outer margins of pelvic and anal fins; base of pectoral black. Juvenile: similar to adult but yellow extends onto tail base and soft dorsal; an ocellus on base of last few dorsal spines.

Size: reaches 10 cm.

Depth: 5-158 m.

Lives on reefs.

Brazil; the SE Caribbean.