---
title: Honeycomb Filefish (Cantherhines pardalis)
scientific_name: Cantherhines pardalis
common_name: Honeycomb Filefish
taxon: Filefishes
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-01-02T11:08:42.483Z
updated: 2026-08-17T11:19:54.008Z
tags: Honeycomb Filefish, Cantherhines pardalis, Filefishes, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/filefishes/honeycomb-filefish
---

# Honeycomb Filefish (*Cantherhines pardalis*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Filefishes (*Monacanthidae*)
- **Size:** up to 25 cm
- **Depth:** 1-20 m
- **Diet:** Omnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Reef with cover, close to holes and ledges
- **Reproduction:** Egg layer
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- first dorsal spine locks upright, held by a smaller spine behind it
- white spot at the base of the rear dorsal fin
- blue lines across the head and a yellowish tail
- three color patterns: plain brown, mottled, or gray under a net of polygons
- up to 25 cm

The spine on its forehead locks. The first dorsal spine hinges up into position and a second, much smaller spine slots in behind it and jams it there, so that raising it is reversible for the fish and not for anything pulling on it. Triggerfish are named for the same mechanism and filefish inherited it: the animal reverses into a hole in the coral, raises the spine against the roof, and becomes very difficult to extract.

It is solitary and secretive, never far from cover, and it comes in three quite different patterns: plain dark brown, mottled gray-brown, and gray covered in a fine net of polygons, which is where the name honeycomb comes from. All three carry a white spot at the base of the rear dorsal fin and blue lines across the head.

The young live somewhere else entirely, drifting in open water under mats of floating Sargassum, and settle onto a reef later.

The skin is the other family trait: dry, rough, covered in minute spinules. Dried filefish skin was once genuinely used as sandpaper.

## Also known as

- **English:** honeycomb filefish, Brown Leather-jacket, wier-net filefish
- **French:** Bourse rayon de miel, Poisson-lime panthère
- **Italian:** Pesce lima favo, Pesce lima reticolato, Pesce lima tassellato
- **German:** Netz-Feilenfisch
- **Portuguese:** Peixe-porco-colmeia
- **Czech:** pilníkotrn skvrnitý
- **Japanese:** アミメウマヅラハギ, Amimeumazurahagi
- **Chinese:** 剝皮魚, 細斑刺鼻單棘魨, 細斑前孔魨
- **Russian:** Сотовый кантерин
- **AF:** Penvis
- **CA:** Peix llima bresca
- **SMO:** Falala

## Scientific synonyms

- *Amanses microlepidotus* Gray, 1859
- *Amanses pardalis* (Rüppell, 1837)
- *Cantherhines melanoides* (Ogilby, 1908)
- *Cantherhines parkalis* (Rüppell, 1837)
- *Cantherines pardalis* (Rüppell, 1837)
- *Hanomanctus bovinus* Smith, 1949
- *Moancanthus kibikib* Montrouzier, 1857
- *Monacanthus aspersus* Hollard, 1854
- *Monacanthus brunneus* Castelnau, 1873
- *Monacanthus fatensis* Seale, 1906
- *Monacanthus fuliginosus* MacLeay, 1883
- *Monacanthus houttuyni* Bleeker, 1854
- *Monacanthus kibikib* Montrouzier, 1857
- *Monacanthus laevicaudatus* Duncker & Mohr, 1929
- *Monacanthus melanistius* Regan, 1908
- *Monacanthus melanuropterus* Bleeker, 1853
- *Monacanthus natalensis* Gilchrist & Thompson, 1911
- *Monacanthus pardalis* Rüppell, 1837
- *Pseudomonacanthus melanoides* Ogilby, 1908

## Range

Federal Republic of Somalia, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Mozambique, Red Sea, Seychelles, South Africa

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/filefishes/honeycomb-filefish)*
*Updated: August 17, 2026*