---
title: Eightspine Cardinalfish (Neamia octospina)
scientific_name: Neamia octospina
common_name: Eightspine Cardinalfish
taxon: Cardinals
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-08T17:05:26.736Z
updated: 2026-08-19T09:11:15.960Z
tags: Eightspine Cardinalfish, Neamia octospina, Cardinals, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/cardinals/eightspine-cardinalfish
---

# Eightspine Cardinalfish (*Neamia octospina*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Cardinals (*Apogonidae*)
- **Size:** 7 cm
- **Depth:** 3-5 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Shallow reef and rubble
- **Reproduction:** Mouthbrooder
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- eight spines in the first dorsal fin, where cardinalfish normally have six or seven
- pale body with fine dark speckling
- large eye and a blunt head
- up to 7 cm

It is named for a count, which tells you something about how fish get identified.

Cardinalfish normally carry six or seven spines in the first dorsal fin. This one has eight, and that single extra spine was distinctive enough to name a genus and a species around. To a diver it is invisible; to a taxonomist with a specimen and a lens it is a hard, countable, non-negotiable fact, and hard facts are scarce in a family of small silvery fish that all look alike.

Spine counts matter because they are fixed early and do not change with age, sex, diet or mood, unlike color, pattern, and everything else visible underwater. A fish that has faded, been preserved for a century, or is known only from a photograph of a juvenile still has the same number of spines.

What the spines do, incidentally, is simple: they lock upright to make the fish harder to swallow, and a predator that has taken one in the throat learns the lesson.

The animal itself is a small pale speckled cardinalfish of shallow reef and rubble, nocturnal like the rest, with the male carrying the eggs.

## Also known as

- **English:** eightspine cardinalfish, Eight-spine Cardinalfish, Eight-spined Cardinalfish
- **Portuguese:** Cardeal-de-oito-espinhos
- **Czech:** parmovec osmitrnný
- **Japanese:** ヤツトゲテンジクダイ, Yatsutogetenjikudai
- **Chinese:** 八棘扁天竺鯛, 大目側仔, 大面側仔
- **Russian:** Жёлтая неамия

## Scientific synonyms

- *Apogon sphenurus* Klunzinger, 1884
- *Apogonichthys coggeri* Whitley, 1964
- *Neamia sphenurus* (Klunzinger, 1884)

## Range

Indian Ocean, Mozambique, Seychelles

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/cardinals/eightspine-cardinalfish)*
*Updated: August 19, 2026*