About Chaetodon meyeri Bloch & Schneider, 1801
Chaetodon meyeri, commonly called the scrawled butterflyfish, has a whitish or bluish-white body marked with curved and diagonal black bars on its flanks; the curved bars curve toward the rear. A black bar with a yellow edge runs through the eye, and a similar black bar sits on the snout around the mouth. This species has 12–13 spines and 23–25 soft rays in its dorsal fin, and 3 spines and 18–20 soft rays in its anal fin. It reaches a maximum total length of 20 centimetres (7.9 inches).
The scrawled butterflyfish has an Indo-Pacific distribution. It occurs along the eastern African coast from Somalia to Durban, and ranges across the Indian and Pacific Oceans east as far as the Line Islands and Hawaii. Its range extends north to Japan's Ryukyu Islands, and south to the Great Barrier Reef, New Caledonia, and Tonga. Vagrants have been recorded in the eastern Pacific Ocean at the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador, and the Revillagigedo Islands of Mexico.
This butterflyfish lives at depths between 2 and 25 metres (6.6 and 82.0 ft), and inhabits coral-rich areas of clear lagoons and seaward reefs. Juveniles are normally solitary and live among branching corals, while adults typically occur in pairs and maintain a home range. The species is oviparous and breeds in pairs. It is an obligate corrallivore, and it is thought to feed on coral mucus rather than actual coral tissue.
