---
title: Brown Cardinalfish (Nectamia fusca)
scientific_name: Nectamia fusca
common_name: Brown Cardinalfish
taxon: Cardinals
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-08T19:51:13.322Z
updated: 2026-08-15T13:10:39.852Z
tags: Brown Cardinalfish, Nectamia fusca, Cardinals, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/cardinals/brown-cardinalfish
---

# Brown Cardinalfish (*Nectamia fusca*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Cardinals (*Apogonidae*)
- **Size:** up to 11 cm
- **Depth:** 1-20 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Lagoon coral heads and sheltered reef
- **Reproduction:** Mouthbrooder, Gonochoric
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- plain brown-bronze body with a faint dark bar through the eye
- dark saddle on the tail base rather than a round spot
- in small groups inside branching coral in shallow water
- length up to 11 cm

A plain brown cardinalfish in a lagoon coral head, eleven centimeters (4.5 in), with almost nothing to describe - which is itself the point of this card.

Most of the individual fish on a reef belong to species like this: abundant, unremarkable, ignored by cameras, and structurally essential. Cardinalfish as a group are one of the main routes by which food gets from open water into the reef, because they feed out over sand at night and are themselves eaten by everything larger during the day. Remove them and the reef loses a conveyor belt.

Identification comes down to the tail base again: a dark saddle here rather than a round spot or a ring.

The male broods in the mouth, fasting for the week it takes. In a shallow lagoon colony you can find one on most dives if you look for the fish sitting slightly apart with its jaw full.

## Also known as

- **English:** Ghost Cardinalfish, Dusky Cardinal, Dusky Cardinalfish
- **French:** Apogon basané
- **Portuguese:** Cardeal-insular
- **Czech:** parmovec guamský, parmovec šedý
- **Japanese:** ホソスジナミダテンジクダイ, Hososujinamidatenjikudai
- **Chinese:** 大目側仔, 大面側仔, 棕色聖竺鯛
- **TAH:** 'upaparu

## Scientific synonyms

- *Apogon fuscus* Quoy & Gaimard, 1825
- *Apogon guamensis* Valenciennes, 1832
- *Apogon nubilus* Garman, 1903
- *Apogon ocellatus* Fourmanoir & Crosnier, 1964
- *Apogon spongicolus* (Smith, 1965)
- *Ostorhinchus nubilus* (Garman, 1903)
- *Ostorhynchus nubilus* (Garman, 1903)
- *Ostorhynchus spongicolus* Smith, 1965

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/cardinals/brown-cardinalfish)*
*Updated: August 15, 2026*