A small Galapagos frogfish, usually red or orange, on sponge and rubble and normally found by a guide who knows the spot.
Between about 8 and 10 cm. Small, globular and compressed. The colour is usually red or maroon but is variable, and the point of it is that the fish blends into the background and looks like an encrusting sponge. Three things confirm it: the second dorsal spine is not joined to the head by a membrane, there is a dark spot at the base of the soft dorsal fin, and there are obvious brown spots on the belly. The dorsal and anal fins are joined to the tail.
The roughbar frogfish is much larger and lives on sand. The other thing it is mistaken for is a sponge, which is the difficulty: check for the belly spots.
It lives in small recesses, crevices and wall faces on rocky reef between 1 and 40 m, usually above 20, and it is not a sand fish. It ambushes crustaceans and small fish and stays put. It is the most common frogfish in the eastern Pacific. It is also called the bloody frogfish.
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.