A small smooth frogfish with a lure so short it is easy to miss entirely.
A frogfish to about 13 cm, the skin smooth to very finely spinulose with none of the warts or filaments of the larger species, and usually scattered with small dark freckles over the body and fins. Colour runs cream, yellow, pink, red-brown and occasionally near black, and — as always in this family — tells you nothing about the species. The identifying feature is the lure: the illicium is short, barely longer than the second dorsal spine, and the esca is a small simple tuft rather than a worm or a shrimp imitation.
Occurs in shallow water on rubble and rock, often in surge and often in places a diver would not linger, which is part of why it is less often shown than its abundance suggests. It is one of the most widely distributed frogfish in the world, recorded right across the Indo-Pacific to the eastern Pacific. Recorded from about a metre to 25 m. Like all frogfish it holds a chosen spot for days, so a fish found on one dive can usually be found again.
Older references list it as Antennarius coccineus.
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.
