[4] Males reach a length up to 90 cm (3.0 ft) and females up to 75 cm (2.5 ft), possibly making it the largest extant species of cichlid;[5] only the speckled peacock bass (Cichla temensis) of South America attains similar sizes as an adult.

[1] Within this range it is a relatively common species found in coastal areas to depths of 100 m (330 ft).

[1] Adults are chiefly piscivorous while juveniles are omnivores; they also display habitat differences related to age, with adults living in small pelagic foraging groups when not spawning while juveniles use shallower, rock-strewn waters for the protective cover they provide.

The generic name of this species is a compound noun, made up of the surname Boulenger, in honour of the Belgian born herpetologist and ichthyologist George Albert Boulenger (1858-1937), and the Greek word chromis which was used by Aristotle for a type of fish.

This word was applied to a number of percomorph fishes, such as damselfish, cardinalfish, dottybacks, wrasses and cichilds, by ichthyologists as these were thought to be closely related.