Dark bands across the tail, and a single-pointed nasal spine, separate it from the flasher scorpionfish.
A Scorpaenopsis to about 25 cm, brown and cream mottled, with the arched back, spiny head and wide-set eyes shared by the whole genus. Two characters carry the identification. The tail is crossed by two or three dark bands, clearer than the vague barring on the tails of the raggy and tasselled scorpionfishes, and the inner surface of the pectoral fin is marked in yellow and black and is shown when the fish moves. The nasal spine has a single point, where the very similar flasher scorpionfish has between two and six, and that difference is a specimen character rather than a field one.
It sits on sand, rubble and low weed rather than on hard reef, and it does not move off when approached. Feeding is by ambush, the mouth opening suddenly to draw in a small fish or crustacean that has come within reach. Recorded from about 5 to 80 m through the western Pacific and into the eastern Indian Ocean, on soft bottoms in sheltered water.
The genus is the standing difficulty of muck scorpionfish photography, because four or five species sit on the same ground in the same posture and the useful characters are on the tail, the nasal spine and the hidden face of the pectoral fin. A fish photographed only at rest and only from above is normally logged as Scorpaenopsis sp.
Ratings are per location: 1 means found on most dives that look for it, 5 means a handful of records. Where enough dives have been logged the figure is calculated from them; otherwise it is an editorial estimate, and says so. We publish habitat and destination, not the dive site.
