A flattened relative of the frogfish that walks on its fins across sand rather than swimming, with a small lure in a recess under the snout.
To 38 cm. Broad, flattened and roughly triangular, with no scales — the body is armoured with bony lumps instead. The snout is short and blunt, the pectoral fins are set on arm-like stalks that it walks on, and the pelvic fins sit underneath. Brownish, with dark spots sometimes ringed in white and reddish or yellow-orange patches on top.
The shortnose batfish is the confusion and the pectoral fins settle it: this species has dark spots on a lighter background there, where the shortnose batfish has a pectoral membrane that is black towards the outer edge, and conical lumps rather than rounded ones.
It is sluggish and lives on the bottom on sand, seagrass, mud and coral rubble, from the shoreline to about 70 m. It walks on its modified fins rather than swimming and flattens itself against the bottom when approached. It uses a short retractable lure that works chemically rather than visually, and eats small crustaceans, molluscs and worms.
The name has changed. This entry previously used Ogcocephalus radiatus, which Eschmeyer’s Catalog of Fishes treats as a doubtful name with no surviving type specimens, placed in the synonymy of Ogcocephalus cubifrons in 1980. Most US references apply the name polka-dot batfish to that species, and this entry now follows them. The Bahamas record applies to the northern Bahamas only.
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.