Smooth-skinned with rounded spots, usually on sponge or rubble rather than open sand.
To about 30 cm, though most animals seen are well under half that. The esca is bushy at the base and broad, made of flattened rather than filamentous appendages, and it does not imitate a fish. The rod is nearly twice the length of the second dorsal spine and carries numerous dark crossbands — that long banded rod is what separates this species and the warty frogfish from the giant frogfish, which has a short one. The skin is soft with small spinules, a few wart-like bumps, scab-like blotches and many small eye spots. The single most useful mark is on the tail: there are nearly always three light-edged ocelli on the caudal fin. Colour runs white through cream, pink, yellow, red and brown to black, and a black phase with white pectoral ray tips is distinctive; juveniles are dark with small yellow spots. Against the warty frogfish, work through the esca first — flattened bushy tuft here, a fish imitation with an eyespot there — then the skin, which is only lightly warty here and covered in warts there.
Sheltered rocky and coral reefs, shallow lagoons and sandy areas, from the shallows to about 75 m but usually around 15. Adults associate with sponges, which they resemble closely; juveniles sit out in the open on sand or reef imitating small sponges or nudibranchs. The strike, the walking gait and the egg raft are as for the rest of the family.
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.