A small scorpionfish that lives down inside the branches of a coral head.
A small scorpionfish to about 7 cm, red to red-brown with a scatter of yellow to orange spots over the head and body and a few white flecks along the back. The head spines are well developed for the size of the fish and there are short skin flaps above the eye. The body is deep and the head large in proportion, which gives the animal a blunt, compact outline quite unlike the flattened Scorpaenopsis.
It lives inside the branches of coral heads, particularly Pocillopora, sitting deep enough that only the head and part of the flank can be seen from outside, and it moves further in rather than leaving when disturbed. Several may occupy one head. That habit, rather than colour, is the practical way to find it: a systematic look into the base of branching coral turns up animals that no amount of searching over open ground will.
Feeding is on small crustaceans taken from within and around the coral head. Recorded from shallow water to about 20 m across the Indo-Pacific. On muck sites the isolated coral heads that stand on rubble margins are the places that hold it, and those heads also hold the porcelain crabs and the coral crabs, so the fish is often found by someone looking for something else.
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.
