---
title: Blackspot Emperor (Lethrinus harak)
scientific_name: Lethrinus harak
common_name: Blackspot Emperor
taxon: Emperors
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-13T17:38:00.264Z
updated: 2026-08-31T07:22:03.830Z
tags: Blackspot Emperor, Lethrinus harak, Emperors, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/emperors/blackspot-emperor
---

# Blackspot Emperor (*Lethrinus harak*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Emperors (*Lethrinidae*)
- **Size:** up to 55 cm
- **Weight:** 2.9 Kg
- **Depth:** 1-20 m
- **Max age:** 15 yrs
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** shallow sand, seagrass and lagoon floors beside reef
- **Reproduction:** Protogynous hermaphrodite, Broadcast spawner
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- Large dark oval blotch on the flank below the lateral line
- Long sloping forehead running to a pointed snout
- Cheek without scales, thick lips that push out
- Reddish tail, pinkish white paired fins
- up to 55 cm

This fish carries an Arabic name into the scientific literature. Working the Red Sea coast in the 1760s, Peter Forsskal wrote down what fishermen there called it, Abu m'harrak, and when his notes were published after his death in 1775 the second word became the species name. Almost every animal in this catalogue is named in Latin or Greek. This one is named in the language spoken on the shore it came from.

The mark is a thumbprint: a large dark oval blotch on the flank just below the lateral line, one on each side, often rimmed with yellow. The rest is standard emperor. A long sloping forehead runs down to a pointed snout, the cheek carries no scales, the tail is reddish, and the thick-lipped mouth pushes forward when it feeds. Inside it are canines at the front for seizing and rows of blunt teeth behind for crushing.

That equipment is for a particular job. It works shallow sand, coral rubble, lagoon floors and seagrass, mostly at night, hunting animals that are already buried: worms, crabs, snails, brittle stars and small fish tucked into the sediment. Meanwhile the pattern is not fixed. The blotch fades and returns and the whole fish can go from pale to boldly barred fast enough that two photographs a minute apart look like two species.

It is one of the emperors a Red Sea diver reliably meets, alone or in small groups over sand near the reef, usually in well under 20 m. Seagrass beds are the nursery. Adults hold home ranges whose size is settled by fights with their own kind, so the bigger the fish, the bigger the patch it keeps.

FishBase records 55 cm and 15 years, with 30 cm about ordinary; the regional guide gives 45 cm for this sea. Like most emperors it is thought to begin as a female and change to male. In Palau it has been recorded spawning in large aggregations during the first five days of each lunar month.

## Also known as

- **English:** blackspot emperor, Black Blotch Emperor, thumbprint emperor
- **Hebrew:** שורי הכתם
- **French:** Empereur Saint Pierre, Bossu d'herbe, Bossu taché
- **Italian:** Pesce imperatore macchia nera
- **German:** Schwarzfleck-Straßenkehrer
- **Spanish:** Emperador San Pedro
- **Portuguese:** Imperador-manchado
- **Dutch:** Zwartvlekstraatveger
- **Czech:** cejnovka černoskvrnná
- **Japanese:** マトフエフキ, Matofuefuki
- **Chinese:** 單斑龍占, 單斑龍占魚, 黑點裸頰鯛
- **Russian:** Краснопёрый летрин
- **MSA:** Pelandok

## Scientific synonyms

- *Lethrinus azureus* Valenciennes, 1830
- *Lethrinus bleekeri* Klunzinger, 1884
- *Lethrinus bonhamensis* Günther, 1874
- *Lethrinus johnii* Castelnau, 1873
- *Lethrinus papuensis* Alleyne & MacLeay, 1877
- *Lethrinus rhodopterus* Bleeker, 1852
- *Sciaena harak* Forsskål, 1775

## Range

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

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/emperors/blackspot-emperor)*
*Updated: August 31, 2026*