Lane Snapper

The vomerine teeth are arranged in an anchor-shaped patch of teeth with a short rearwards extension along the middle of the palate and there is a pair of tooth patches ar either side of the palate. The preopercle is serrated, and has a weakly developed incision and knob. It has a continuous dorsal fin which has 10 spines and 12-13 soft rays, with a slight incision sometimes visible between the spines and soft rays, the anal fin has 3 spines and 8-9 soft rays. It has relatively short pectoral fins which do not extend as far as the anus and contain 15-16 fin rays. The caudal fin is emarginate. This fish attains a maximum total length of 60 cm (24 in), although 25 cm (9.8 in) is more typical, and the max published weight is 3.5 kg (7.7 lb). This species has two colour phases, a deep-water phase which is darker and more distinctive than the colour of the shallow-water resting phase. In both phases the upper flanks and the back are pink to red with a green tint on the back. The bottom flanks and abdomen are silver with a yellow hue. There are 3-4 yellow stripes on the head which stretch from the snout to the eye, The flanks are marked with 8-10 yellow to pink longitudinal stripes, with a further 3-4 underneath the front dorsal fin ray. They have an indistinct black spot underneath the soft rayed part of the dorsal fin. The fins are may be yellow to red.