The females, and the juveniles, have greyish to bluish background colouration and are marked with wide black bands and a blue longitudinal stripe on the lower flanks.

The males’ background colour is pale bluish to greyish and they have horizontal golden stripes along the centre of the flanks and another along the lower back.

In the females and juveniles there is a black stripe which runs vertically from the nape through and engulfing the eye but does not extend past the lower part of the orbit.

[1] Here it lives on deep reefs, frequently in areas which are swept by strong currents on the outer drop offs.

[3] Genicanthus bellus is very infrequent and fetches high prices in the aquarium trade as it is rarely collected because of the depths at which it lives.

There can be high mortality in specimens collected for the trade but healthy, acclimated fish can be very hardy and resilient in captivity.