---
title: Blackstriped Cardinalfish (Ostorhinchus nigrofasciatus)
scientific_name: Ostorhinchus nigrofasciatus
common_name: Blackstriped Cardinalfish
taxon: Cardinals
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-08T20:35:50.492Z
updated: 2026-08-18T17:55:06.177Z
tags: Blackstriped Cardinalfish, Ostorhinchus nigrofasciatus, Cardinals, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/cardinals/blackstriped-cardinalfish
---

# Blackstriped Cardinalfish (*Ostorhinchus nigrofasciatus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Cardinals (*Apogonidae*)
- **Size:** up to 10 cm
- **Depth:** 3-50 m
- **Diet:** Planktivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Coral and rubble on reef slopes
- **Reproduction:** Mouthbrooder
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- pale body crossed lengthwise by two or three hard black stripes
- black spot on the tail base
- stripes continue straight through the eye
- up to 10 cm

Hard black stripes on a pale fish, running from snout to tail and straight through the eye.

Stripes like that do two jobs at once and both matter to a shoaling fish. The first is the eye: a line drawn through it hides the one feature a predator can always find, which is why so many reef fish carry a bar or a stripe across the face. The second is the school. A fish trying to stay with its neighbors in poor light needs to read their position and heading fast, and a bold horizontal line does that better than any body shape - it shows which way the fish is pointing and how far away it is, at a glance, in conditions where color has already failed.

That second job is the one that matters here. Cardinalfish work at night and at dusk, and a shoal holding formation in near-darkness over a reef is doing it on lines rather than on shapes.

The rest is standard for the family: small, big-eyed, out at night for zooplankton, and the male carries the eggs in his mouth until they hatch.

## Also known as

- **English:** Blackstripe Cardinalfish, Black-striped Cardinalfish, Blackbanded Soldierfish
- **French:** Apogon à rayures noires, Poisson-cardinal à rayures noires
- **Italian:** Pesce cardinale fasce nere, Pesce cardinale lineato bruno
- **Portuguese:** Cardeal-riscas-de-chocolate
- **Czech:** parmovec černopruhý
- **Japanese:** ミナミフトスジイシモチ, Minamifutosujiishimochi
- **Chinese:** 大目側仔, 大面側仔, 黑带鹦天竺鲷
- **TAH:** 'upaparu

## Scientific synonyms

- *Apogon nigrofasciatus* Lachner, 1953

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/cardinals/blackstriped-cardinalfish)*
*Updated: August 18, 2026*