Males are reddish-orange with a black head mask, white saddles along the back, and blackish dorsal fins. Females are a mottled brown to greenish-brown pale saddles and a whitish streak running from the rear of the upper jaw below the eye and across the cheek. Both sexes have a dark vertical bar on the caudal peduncle from the dorsal to the ventral surface, a uniformly pale caudal fin, and the first dorsal fin is lower in height than the second dorsal fin. (fishes of australia)