---
title: Redspot Emperor (Lethrinus lentjan)
scientific_name: Lethrinus lentjan
common_name: Redspot Emperor
taxon: Emperors
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-13T19:27:03.414Z
updated: 2026-08-13T12:14:22.386Z
tags: Redspot Emperor, Lethrinus lentjan, Emperors, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/emperors/redspot-emperor
---

# Redspot Emperor (*Lethrinus lentjan*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Emperors (*Lethrinidae*)
- **Size:** up to 52 cm
- **Depth:** 5-90 m
- **Diet:** Durophage
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Sand, seagrass and rubble beside reef
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Protogynous hermaphrodite
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- silver-gray body with a bright red patch on the edge of the gill cover
- red-orange around the eye and at the base of the pectoral fin
- steep forehead, thick lips, snout often buried in sand
- length up to 52 cm

A silver-gray emperor to 52 cm (20 in) whose one reliable mark is a red patch on the rear edge of the gill cover, with red-orange around the eye. The emperors are otherwise a family of near-identical silver fish, and this is the one detail that settles it in the water.

It feeds at night on sand and seagrass, crushing molluscs, crabs and urchins with rows of molars at the back of the jaw and blowing craters in the sediment to reach them. By day it hangs in loose groups over rubble, doing nothing much.

It matures as a female and changes sex later, so the largest fish in a group is a converted male and the size structure of a population is also its sex structure - which is why heavy line fishing, which takes the big ones, skews a stock in a way that catch numbers alone do not show.

It is one of the most commonly landed food fishes across the region, and juveniles use shallow seagrass as a nursery - the same seagrass that gets dredged for marinas.

## Also known as

- **English:** pink ear emperor, Pinkear Emperor, redspot emperor
- **Arabic:** سمك الإمبراطور أحمر النقط, سمك الإمبراطور أرجواني الأذنين, سمك الإمبراطور وردي الأذن
- **French:** Bossu à tache rouge, Empereur dame Berris, Bossu d'herbe
- **Spanish:** Emperador de Lentejuelas
- **Portuguese:** Imperador-de-orelha-rosa
- **Czech:** cejnovka růžovouchá
- **Japanese:** シモフリフエフキ, Shimofurifuefuki
- **Chinese:** 扁裸頰鯛, 扁裸颊鲷, 烏帽龍占魚
- **Russian:** Королевский летрин
- **MSA:** Pelandok
- **TH:** ปลาหมูสีแก้มแดง

## Scientific synonyms

- *Bodianus lentjan* Lacepède, 1802
- *Letherinus lentjanus* (Lacepède, 1802)
- *Letherinus leutjanus* (Lacepède, 1802)
- *Lethrinus argenteus* Valenciennes, 1830
- *Lethrinus cinereus* Valenciennes, 1830
- *Lethrinus cocosensis* Bleeker, 1854
- *Lethrinus croceopterus* Valenciennes, 1830
- *Lethrinus flavescens* Valenciennes, 1830
- *Lethrinus fusciceps* MacLeay, 1878
- *Lethrinus geniguttatus* Valenciennes, 1830
- *Lethrinus glyphodon* Günther, 1859
- *Lethrinus mahsenoides* Valenciennes, 1830
- *Lethrinus nubilis* (Cantor, 1849)
- *Lethrinus opercularis* Valenciennes, 1830
- *Lethrinus punctulatus* MacLeay, 1878
- *Lethrinus virescens* Valenciennes, 1830
- *Letthrinus lentjan* (Lacepède, 1802)
- *Pentapodus nubilis* Cantor, 1849
- *Pentapodus nubilus* Cantor, 1849

## Range

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

---

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