A small, warty relative of the stonefish that sits half-buried on open sand.
A stonefish of the family Synanceiidae, reaching about 15 cm, squat and deep-bodied with a large blunt head that accounts for much of its length. The skin is loose, warty and pitted, without scales, and the eye sits deep in a bony socket ringed with knobs and short flaps. Colour is variable — rose, brick red, brown or grey, usually mottled and generally matching whatever the fish is sitting on. Two English names are in general use, Pacific monkeyfish and pitted stonefish, and the second is the better guide to what it is. Divers regularly call it an Ambon scorpionfish, which is a different fish in a different family: Pteroidichthys amboinensis is slimmer, carries long branching appendages over the eyes, and lacks the pitted head.
Ranges from Japan and the China seas south through Indonesia to northern Australia, and unlike most of its family is a soft-bottom animal rather than a reef one, occurring on open sand, silt and mud. Spends the day partly buried, often with only the top of the head and the eyes exposed, and hunts by ambush after dark. Recorded from a few metres down to about 40. Like all synanceiids it carries venomous dorsal spines and relies on being stepped on rather than on fleeing; buoyancy, not distance, is the thing to get right around 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.
