[5] This species has an overall colour which may be brownish to pinkish, lavender or reddish-purple marked with slender yellow lines and blue spots on its snout and the flat space between its eyes.

It occurs along the eastern African coast from the Gulf of Suez and Gulf of Aqaba in the northern Red Sea to South Africa and across the Indian Ocean archipelagos and coasts into the Pacific, where its range extends east as far as Hawaii and Tahiti, north to Japan and south to Australia.

[1] Pristipomoides filamentosus is a nocturnal feeder, migrating upwards through the water column to the part of its habitat closest to the surface to prey on small fishes, crustaceans, ascidians and salps.

[2] Known parasites of the crimson jobfish include the cymothoid isopod Anilocra gigantea,[7] the pennellid copepod Lernaeolophus sultanus and the nematodes Cucullanus bourdini[8] and Raphidascaris (Ichthyosaurus) eteligis.

[9] Pristipomoides filamentosus is an important species for fisheries and is caught using bottom longlines and deep handlines to be, largely, sold as fresh fish.

It is of high commercial value in Hawaii and is the second most important quarry for the offshore handline fishery, making up 20% of the total catch of bottomfish.