---
title: Red Sea Bannerfish (Heniochus intermedius)
scientific_name: Heniochus intermedius
common_name: Red Sea Bannerfish
taxon: Butterflyfishes
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2023-12-22T22:20:54.466Z
updated: 2026-08-13T20:30:23.987Z
tags: Red Sea Bannerfish, Heniochus intermedius, Butterflyfishes, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/butterflyfishes/red-sea-bannerfish
---

# Red Sea Bannerfish (*Heniochus intermedius*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Butterflyfishes (*Chaetodontidae*)
- **Size:** up to 18 cm
- **Depth:** 3-50 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Coral-rich reef and drop-offs, usually in pairs
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Endemic:** Endemic to the Red Sea
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- white body with two broad black bands and a long white dorsal filament
- yellow tail and yellow rear dorsal fin
- blunt rounded snout, unlike the long snout of the Moorish Idol
- almost always in a pair
- length up to 18 cm

White with two black bands and a long white pennant streaming off the back, cruising a drop-off in a pair - and endemic to this sea, which surprises most divers who assume so common a fish must be everywhere.

It is constantly confused with the Moorish Idol, and the difference is the face: the bannerfish has a short blunt snout and the idol has a long tube of one, with a yellow saddle across it. Once seen the two never look alike again.

The pairs are the point. These fish move as couples, feed together, turn together, and stay paired over long periods - and while they take plankton from the water column, they also work as cleaners when young, picking parasites off larger fish.

They hold no territory and range widely along a reef, which is why the same pair turns up at different points of one dive. Common, easy to approach, and one of the few genuinely local fish that a first-time visitor is guaranteed to photograph.

## Also known as

- **English:** Red Sea bannerfish
- **Russian:** Красноморская кабуба
- **DA:** Rødehavsvimpelfisk

## Scientific synonyms

- *Heniochus intermedium* Steindachner, 1893

## Range

Djibouti, Eritrea, Federal Republic of Somalia, Red Sea

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/butterflyfishes/red-sea-bannerfish)*
*Updated: August 13, 2026*