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.

[4] The exquisite wrasse is found from the eastern coast of Africa as far south as Sodwana Bay in South Africa, east through the Indian Ocean to Australia and into the Pacific Ocean as far as east as the Tuamotus, French Polynesia.

[4] It reaches north as far as the Ryukyu Islands and south to the northern Great Barrier Reef.

It can occur in reasonably large, mixed sex groups when feeding on zooplankton high above the seabed.

[6] This is the most widespread member of the genus Cirrhilabrus and may prove to represent a species complex.