[3] The body is white turning yellowish towards the belly and is marked with 7 black stripes over the head and the flanks.

[2] The eightband butterflyfish is found in the eastern Indian Ocean and the western Pacific Ocean from the Maldives, India and Sri Lanka[2] east to the Solomon Islands,[1] north to southern Japan and south to the Scott Reef in Western Australia.

Adults swim in pairs in coral-rich areas of sheltered inshore and lagoon reefs; juveniles can often be seen in groups among Acropora corals.

[2] The eightband butterflyfish was first formally described in 1787 by the German zoologist Marcus Elieser Bloch (1723–1799) with the type locality given as the INdian Ocean.

They appear to be close relatives of the subgenus Tetrachaetodon which includes for example the mirror butterflyfish (C. speculum) and together with these would probably go in Megaprotodon if Chaetodon is split up.