---
title: Bridled Cardinalfish (Pristiapogon fraenatus)
scientific_name: Pristiapogon fraenatus
common_name: Bridled Cardinalfish
taxon: Cardinals
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-08T20:42:17.170Z
updated: 2026-08-18T18:12:31.462Z
tags: Bridled Cardinalfish, Pristiapogon fraenatus, Cardinals, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/cardinals/bridled-cardinalfish
---

# Bridled Cardinalfish (*Pristiapogon fraenatus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Cardinals (*Apogonidae*)
- **Size:** 11 cm
- **Depth:** 3-50 m
- **Diet:** Planktivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Coral reef and ledges, in caves and under overhangs by day
- **Reproduction:** Mouthbrooder
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- silvery body with a fine dark stripe running from the snout through the eye to the tail
- distinct black spot on the tail base, on the upper half rather than centered
- large eye and a blunt snout
- up to 11 cm

The black spot at the base of the tail is worth understanding, because half the cardinalfish on this reef have one and it is doing real work.

A spot at the wrong end of a fish is a deflection mark. A predator striking at what it takes to be the head commits to the tail instead, and the fish accelerates away from the strike rather than into it. It is the same trick as the false eyespots on butterflyfish, and it works because an attack has to be aimed somewhere and the aiming is done fast on a small number of cues.

For a diver it is also the identification. Cardinalfish are a genus of near-identical silvery fish with big eyes, and the differences that matter are exactly this granular: whether the tail spot is centered or high, whether the stripe runs through the eye or stops at it, whether it reaches the tail. This one has a fine stripe from snout to tail and the spot placed on the upper half of the tail base.

It is a common fish of ledges and cave mouths, out at night over the reef for plankton.

## Also known as

- **English:** Bridled Cardinalfish, Spiny-eye Cardinalfish, Spiny-eyed Cardinal-fish
- **French:** Apogon bridé, Bouski Canal, Bengali
- **Portuguese:** Cardeal-mascarado
- **Czech:** parmovec zářivý
- **Japanese:** ヒトスジイシモチ, Hitosujiishimochi
- **Chinese:** 棘眼鋸天竺鯛
- **TAH:** 'upaparu
- **TH:** ปลาอมไข่หนาม

## Scientific synonyms

- *Amia frenata* (Valenciennes, 1832)
- *Apogon fraenatus* Valenciennes, 1832
- *Apogon frenatus* Valenciennes, 1832
- *Apogon vittiger* Bennett, 1833
- *Ostorhinchus fraenatus* (Valenciennes, 1832)
- *Pristiapogon frenatus* (Valenciennes, 1832)

## Range

Mozambique, Red Sea, Seychelles

---

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