About Siganus puellus (Schlegel, 1852)
The masked spinefoot, Siganus puellus, has a compressed body, with body depth measuring between 2.3 and 2.6 times its standard length. It has a symmetrical wedge-shaped head with a slightly protruding snout. Its front nostril has a flange that grows into a triangular flap pointing toward the rear. There is a recumbent spine at the front of its dorsal fin. Like all rabbitfishes, this species' dorsal fin has 13 spines and 10 soft rays, while the anal fin has 7 spines and 9 soft rays. The fin spines are robust and contain venom glands. The caudal fin is strongly forked, particularly in adults, and has sharply pointed lobes. This species reaches a maximum total length of 38 cm (15 in), though 25 cm (9.8 in) is more common. Its upper body is yellow, fading to light blue or white on the lower body. It is patterned with sinuous blue lines that are vertical near the head and horizontal toward the tail; these lines become blue spots toward the abdomen. A broad diagonal black band runs through the eye, extending from the chin to the nape; this band breaks into black spots over the eye. All of its fins are yellow in color. The masked spinefoot has a broad range across the Indo-West Pacific, stretching from the Cocos-Keeling Islands and the outer reefs of the northwestern Shelf of Western Australia, through Indonesia, to the Ryukyu Islands and Kiribati, and as far south as the southern Great Barrier Reef and New Caledonia. It occurs at depths down to 30 m (98 ft), in shallow clear coral-rich lagoons and on seaward reefs.
