---
title: Zebra Cardinalfish (Nectamia zebrinus)
scientific_name: Nectamia zebrinus
common_name: Zebra Cardinalfish
taxon: Cardinals
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-08T19:56:06.182Z
updated: 2026-08-20T16:17:04.170Z
tags: Zebra Cardinalfish, Nectamia zebrinus, Cardinals, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/cardinals/zebra-cardinalfish
---

# Zebra Cardinalfish (*Nectamia zebrinus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Cardinals (*Apogonidae*)
- **Size:** 7.4 cm
- **Depth:** 1-10 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Sheltered shallow reef and lagoons
- **Reproduction:** Mouthbrooder
- **Endemic:** Endemic to the Red Sea
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- pale body crossed by several dark vertical bars
- bars strongest on the forebody, fading toward the tail
- large eye and a blunt head
- up to 7.4 cm

Bars, not stripes, and the difference is not cosmetic.

A lengthwise stripe follows the direction a fish travels and helps a school hold formation. A vertical bar does the opposite: it cuts across the body, breaking the outline into segments that do not read as one animal. Against a background of coral branches, sea grass, shadow and rubble - all of which are full of vertical edges - a barred fish disappears at a distance where a striped one is still obvious.

So the two patterns belong to different lives. Barred fish tend to be the ones that sit still near structure; striped fish tend to be the ones that move in groups in open water. Where a species does both, it often carries both, or can switch: a good many reef fish darken their bars when they settle into cover for the night and drop them when they come out.

This one is a small, pale, barred cardinalfish of sheltered shallow reef and lagoons, out at night for small crustaceans, and it does exactly what its pattern suggests - stays close to structure and lets the background do the work.

## Scientific synonyms

- *Apogon zebrinus* Fraser, Randall & Lachner, 1999
- *Nectamia zebrinus* (Fraser, Randall & Lachner, 1999)

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/cardinals/zebra-cardinalfish)*
*Updated: August 20, 2026*