---
title: Narrowstripe Cardinalfish (Pristiapogon exostigma)
scientific_name: Pristiapogon exostigma
common_name: Narrowstripe Cardinalfish
taxon: Cardinals
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-08T21:11:05.417Z
updated: 2026-08-15T13:42:35.656Z
tags: Narrowstripe Cardinalfish, Pristiapogon exostigma, Cardinals, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/cardinals/narrowstripe-cardinalfish
---

# Narrowstripe Cardinalfish (*Pristiapogon exostigma*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Cardinals (*Apogonidae*)
- **Size:** up to 12 cm
- **Depth:** 3-120 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Reef slopes and drop-offs, in caves by day
- **Reproduction:** Mouthbrooder, Gonochoric
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- silvery body with one fine dark stripe from the snout through the eye to the tail
- small black spot on the tail base, below the level of the stripe
- hovers alone or in twos under ledges
- length up to 12 cm

A silvery fish with a single hairline stripe and a small black spot at the tail, hanging under a ledge on its own. Twelve centimeters (5 in).

Its depth range is the surprise: recorded from three meters down to a hundred and twenty. That spread is common in this family and rare in most others, and it is a consequence of how they live - a fish that spends the day in a hole and hunts in the dark does not much care how deep the hole is, since the light conditions it works in are the same either way.

The spot sits below the line of the stripe, which is what separates it from the several other single-striped cardinalfish in the region.

Male broods in the mouth for about a week, fasting. It is worth repeating because it is the family's defining behavior: nearly every cardinalfish a diver sees is either about to do this, doing it, or recovering from it.

## Also known as

- **English:** Narrowstripe Cardinalfish, Eyeshadow Cardinalfish, One-line Cardinal
- **French:** Apogon à bride fine, Apogon à rayure fine
- **Portuguese:** Cardeal-de-linha-escura
- **Czech:** parmovec stínooký
- **Japanese:** ユカタイシモチ, Yukataishimochi
- **Chinese:** 單線天竺鯛, 單線鋸天竺鯛, 大目側仔
- **TAH:** 'upaparu

## Scientific synonyms

- *Amia exostigma* Jordan & Starks, 1906
- *Apogon exostigma* (Jordan & Starks, 1906)
- *Apogon frenatus* Lachner, 1953

---

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