The Yellow-dotted Butterflyfish, Chaetodon selene, is a poorly known fish species which has been recorded in the Indo-Pacific

Indo-Pacific

The Indo-Pacific is a biogeographic region of the Earth's seas, comprising the tropical waters of the Indian Ocean, the western and central Pacific Ocean, and the seas connecting the two in the general area of Indonesia...

 region from Malaysia, Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

, New Guinea

New Guinea

New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...

, Taiwan

Taiwan

Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

 and Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

.

It grows to a maximum of 16 centimetres (6.3 in) long. The body is mainly white, with a series of yellow dots running at diagonal lines over the sides (see photo). A black band extends from the caudal peduncle along the bases of the dorsal and anal fins. There is a narrow black eyestripe edged with yellow.

C. selene belongs to the large subgenus

Subgenus

In biology, a subgenus is a taxonomic rank directly below genus.In zoology, a subgeneric name can be used independently or included in a species name, in parentheses, placed between the generic name and the specific epithet: e.g. the Tiger Cowry of the Indo-Pacific, Cypraea tigris Linnaeus, which...

 Rabdophorus, which might warrant recognition as a distinct genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

. In this group, it appears a somewhat distant relative of the Black-backed Butterflyfish (C. melannotus) and the Spot-tailed Butterflyfish (C. ocellicaudus). They are all of oval shape, silvery with yellow fins and snout, ascending diagonal stripes (yellow in C. selene, dark in the others), and black markings around the eyes, on the caudal peduncle, and sometimes on the back. Next closest seem the Saddle Butterflyfish

Saddle butterflyfish

The Saddle Butterflyfish, Chaetodon ephippium, is a species of butterflyfish . It is found in the Indian and Pacific Oceans from Sri Lanka and the Cocos-Keeling Islands to the Hawaiian, Marquesan and Tuamoto islands, north to southern Japan, south to Rowley Shoals and New South Wales in...

 (C. ephippium) and the Dotted Butterflyfish

Dotted butterflyfish

The Dotted Butterflyfish, Chaetodon semeion, is a species of butterflyfish . It is found in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean from the Maldives to the Tuamotu Islands, north to the Ryukyu Islands and south to the Great Barrier Reef.It grows to a maximum of long. The body is golden yellow...

 (C. semeion), but these are already so distant that their ancestors are thought to have diverged from those soon after the Rabdophorus lineage started to diversify.

The Yellow-dotted Butterflyfish is found on coastal reef

Reef

In nautical terminology, a reef is a rock, sandbar, or other feature lying beneath the surface of the water ....

s, primarily on rubble slopes from 8–50 m (26.2–164 ft) in depth. It feeds on benthic invertebrates.