There are delicate yellowish-orange chevrons on the flanks in front of the black teardrop and there is another black vertical band with runs from the rear of the dorsal fin, across the caudal peduncle to the rear of the anal fin.

[2] The teardrop butterflyfish is found in the eastern Indian and western Pacific Oceans from Christmas Island and Cocos (Keeling) Island east as far as Hawaii, the Marquesas and Ducie Island, north as far as Southern Japan, and south to Lord Howe in the Tasman Sea and the central coast of New South Wales.

[5][3] Teradrop butterflyfish are normally encountered in small groups in reef flats, clear lagoon and seaward reefs where they feed on soft and hard corals, as well as polychaetes, small crustaceans and filamentous algae.

[2] These fishes may be found at depths of 1 to 60 metres (3.3 to 196.9 ft) and they are most numerous where the leathery corals of the genera Sarcophyton and Sinularia grow.

[1] The teardrop butterflyfish was first formally described in 1787 by the german medical doctor and zoologist Marcus Elieser Bloch ((1723-1799) with the type locality give as the East Indies, i.e.