Harlequin Sweetlips Plectorhinchus chaetodonoides

The Harlequin Sweetlips, also called the Many-spotted, is a type of grunt native to coral reefs of the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific.

The adult Harlequin Sweetlips is white with black spots. It can grow to some 70cm long but more typically is some 50cm. Diet is small fish, crustaceans and molluscs.

Like most grunts, they are mainly nocturnal. The juveniles, above right, are strikingly different from the adults.

Juveniles transition in several stages to their adult black spots, from being dark brown with large white spots to getting smaller dark spots within the white spots to a jumble of brown spots and bars on white before achieving the adult look.