This specie sis distinguished by the following characters: D IX,11; A III,12; pectoral rays 13; caudal rays 14; lateral line scales 27; body y white with a stripe running on midline of the body from the snout, through the eye to tail; stripe straight, broadest and continuous from the snout to the shoulder, when it turns into a line of close-set spots in a zigzag pattern in alternate scales of 2 adjoining rows; terminal phase have the stripe entirely black or black at the first half becoming brownish, some with golden spots above and below scales, body darkened in the dorsum and the abdomen, becoming grayish or greenish in the area just above the mid-body stripe to the base of the dorsal fin; at the initial phase, the stripe is brown on the first third of its length and yellow to golden on the last two thirds (Ref. 80967).