A sand fish that walks on free pectoral rays it also tastes with, and raises a barred fan of a pectoral fin when disturbed.
To about 27 cm, though one source gives 20. Coppery-orange above with broad black bars, white below with reddish-brown blotches, and three black bands on the tail.
The character is on the head: cirri on the nostrils and a fleshy tentacle over each eye. That combination separates it from every other searobin in the region.
Eight to a hundred and seventy metres, usually twenty to seventy, on mud and sand, and it is recorded from bays and estuaries. Like the gurnard it uses three enlarged free pectoral rays to walk and probe the bottom, taking crustaceans, snails and worms.
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.