[4] The juveniles have a yellowish on the posterior portion of their body and are marked with a white stripe which runs from the snout to the origin of the dorsal fin.

[2] Cephalopholis boenak has a wide distribution in the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific Ocean from the eastern coast of Africa where it occurs from Kenya south to southern Mozambique along the southern Asian coast and into the Pacific where it occurs north as far as the Ryukyu Islands and east to New Caledonia.

[3] Cephalopholis boenak is mainly a coastal species which is found on silty, dead and living coral reefs as deep as 30 metres (98 ft).

[4] They occur in relatively small social groups which comprise a single male, one or two smaller females, and a variable number of sexually inactive individuals.

Hook-and-line, traps and trawling are the main methods used to catch them, although they are occasionally caught using gillnet and purse-seine.