Exquisite wrasse

The exquisite wrasse has a dominant colour of greenish through to reddish and exhibits complex patterning of colours. The adult males are olive-green dorsally fading to white, pale blue or pink on their underparts and having an oval shaped dark spot on the caudal peduncle which has its bottom margin touching the lateral line. A blue line, which is frequently interrupted, runs from underneath the pectoral fin to the spot on the tail base, and another blue line runs from the corner of the mouth to above the eye before running along the base of the dorsal fin, a second line on the head runs from the posterior edge of the eye until it breaks up above the pectoral fin, and a third line runs from the rear of the mouth to the just above the pectoral-fin base. The base of the pectoral fin is marked with a black bar, edged with blue while the margin of that fin is red. All of the fins show variable amounts of red in their middle portions. The juveniles and smaller females are reddish with an blue-margined black oval-shaped spot on the caudal peduncle and a white spot at the tip of the snout. The colouration shown by exquisite wrasse does vary geographically. A male can attain a standard length of 12 centimetres (4.7 in).