Unmarked white fin rays, and two white lines along the tail base that no other has.
A lionfish to about 24 cm, banded in dark red-brown and white, with pectoral and dorsal fin rays that are very long, separate, and free of webbing for most of their length. Two features separate it from the other Pterois here. The rays and the membranes at their base are unmarked, where Pterois antennata carries a row of dark spots on the membrane at the base of the pectorals. And there is a pair of narrow horizontal white lines running along the caudal peduncle, which no other lionfish in the region has and which shows even when the fish is back in shadow.
It is more strictly nocturnal than the others. By day it sits well under ledges, in crevices and inside wreckage, often hanging inverted against the roof of a small cave, and it hunts after dark, taking shrimps and small crabs rather than the fish that make up more of the red lionfish’s diet. It is the least often seen of the four Pterois in this index.
Recorded from about 2 to 30 m, on reef edges, rubble and structure rather than out on open sediment.
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.
