A sand flathead carrying a fringe of short skin flaps along the lower lip.
A flathead to about 30 cm, the head broad, depressed and armed with ridges and spines along the preopercle, the body tapering and mottled in brown, grey and cream with darker saddles across the back and bars on the tail. The lower lip carries a row of short skin flaps that gives the fish its name and is the readiest character in a photograph, because it is visible from directly in front and does not depend on counting spines. The eye carries the branched flap over the iris that the family shares.
The habit is the usual one for the group: the fish settles on sand or fine rubble, works sediment over the back with small movements of the fins until only the outline and the eyes are clear, and waits. Prey is small fish and crustaceans taken upward with a short lunge from that position. It will hold while a diver settles nearby and moves off in a low glide of a few metres when the distance closes further.
Recorded across the Indo-Pacific on sand and rubble from a few metres down. The species appears in some references under Thysanophrys, and the several sand flatheads met on this ground are separated on head spine and ridge characters that a photograph will not usually settle, so a record kept at the genus is often the honest one.
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.
