A moderately large species, to about 240 mm, Grey/Cream with yellowish fins. Females have a large inky thumprint spot on each sides. Males have a row of smaller spots below the dorsal fin and light electric blue wavy patterns on their cheeks. Animals in transition with have faded spots and no wavy blue lines.

It is abundant on rocky reefs and estuaries. It occurs mainly in shallow water but recorded to depths of about 145m.

Food items consists of small bivalve molluscs, grapsid crabs and hermit crabs. It uses its forward-jutting front teeth to rake food from the substrate.

Spotties have two life phases, they change colour and sex between 13cm and 19cm at approximately 2-3 years of age. Change is female to male. They are a harem fish with one male to roughly 20 females. This species is a pelagic spawner (Jones 1980), spawning occurs from late July until the end of October. Hybrid specimens of this species and N. fucicola have been reported
It is not known if fish 'sleep' but after close observations of spotties in the Aquarium it appears they spend part of their night in a state of sleep or deep rest.

Coastal Fishes of New Zealand: Francis
Russell, B. & Choat, J.H. 2010. Notolabrus celidotus. In: IUCN 2013. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2013.2. . Downloaded on 07 February 2014.