---
title: Bigeye Emperor (Monotaxis grandoculis)
scientific_name: Monotaxis grandoculis
common_name: Bigeye Emperor
taxon: Emperors
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-13T21:52:40.564Z
updated: 2026-08-13T20:30:23.874Z
tags: Bigeye Emperor, Monotaxis grandoculis, Emperors, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/emperors/bigeye-emperor
---

# Bigeye Emperor (*Monotaxis grandoculis*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Emperors (*Lethrinidae*)
- **Size:** up to 60 cm
- **Weight:** 5.9 Kg
- **Depth:** 1-100 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Sand and rubble beside reef, resting in groups by day
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Poisonous
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- silver body, steep forehead, very large eye set high
- bright yellow around the eye and inside the pectoral fin base
- juveniles boldly barred in black and white
- small resting groups facing into current beside a coral head
- length up to 60 cm

A silver fish with a steep head and a very large eye, resting in a loose group beside a coral head in the middle of the day and not going anywhere. Sixty centimeters (24 in) at its largest.

The head is built around what it eats. Behind those unremarkable lips sit heavy molar-like teeth in the throat, and the fish makes its living crushing shells - snails, hermit crabs, urchins, brittle stars - which it picks off the sand at night and mills into fragments. Where they feed you can find the spat-out shell debris in small piles.

The eye follows from the same habit. Night hunting over sand, in animals that do not chase anything fast, rewards light-gathering over speed, and this is the emperor that took that furthest.

Juveniles are barred black and white and behave differently, keeping to shallow rubble on their own. Adults are common enough to be background on any dive; the reason to look twice is the yellow ring around the eye, which is the field mark that separates them from every other silver fish resting on the same patch of sand.

## Also known as

- **English:** bigeye emperor, roundtoothed large-eyed bream, humpnose big-eye bream
- **French:** Brème aux gros yeux, Dorade à Gros Yeux, Capitaine Bossu
- **Spanish:** Emperador Jorobado
- **Japanese:** ヨコシマクロダイ, Yokoshimakurodai
- **Chinese:** 单列齿鲷, 單列齒鯛, 大眼黑鯛
- **TAH:** mu

## Scientific synonyms

- *Lethrinus grandoculis* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Lethrinus latidens* Valenciennes, 1830
- *Monotaxis grandocculis* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Monotaxis grandocularis* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Monotaxis grandoculus* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Monotaxis indica* Anonymous [Bennett], 1830
- *Sciaena grandoculis* Forsskål, 1775

## Range

Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Federal Republic of Somalia, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Red Sea, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/emperors/bigeye-emperor)*
*Updated: August 13, 2026*