Dhinimbu can be identified by the patterning up and down its silver body. The blueish striping helps camouflage it against the rippling surface light and to ambush prey, a useful adaptation for a fish that can live for over 20 years. Living throughout the Indo-West Pacific region in tropical and sub-tropical waters, dhinimbu will come closer to warmer coastal waters to spawn, with the young dhinimbu being extraordinarily mobile. They begin to form schools at around five years old.