---
title: Scrawled Filefish (Aluterus scriptus)
scientific_name: Aluterus scriptus
common_name: Scrawled Filefish
taxon: Filefishes
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2023-12-28T23:43:26.875Z
updated: 2026-08-12T11:28:54.718Z
tags: Scrawled Filefish, Aluterus scriptus, Filefishes, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/filefishes/scrawled-filefish
---

# Scrawled Filefish (*Aluterus scriptus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Filefishes (*Monacanthidae*)
- **Size:** up to 1.1 m
- **Weight:** 2.5 Kg
- **Depth:** 3-120 m
- **Diet:** Omnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Reef, wrecks and drifting weed, often hanging head-down
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Poisonous
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- long flattened olive body scrawled with blue lines and black dots
- broom-like tail, often held spread, longer than expected for the body
- drifts head-down beside coral or in open water, moving with the surge
- length up to 1.1 m

A long flat olive fish scrawled over with blue lines and black dots, with a broom of a tail and a habit of hanging head-down beside a coral head. Up to 1.1 m (43 in), which makes it the largest filefish in the sea and considerably bigger than the fish most divers assume they are looking at.

The posture is camouflage. Head-down, drifting with the surge, a scrawled filefish reads as a piece of weed or a bleached branch, and it can hold the pose while feeding on whatever it is inspecting - hydroids, algae, seagrass, small invertebrates and, occasionally, stinging things nothing else will touch.

The first dorsal spine is a lock, as in the triggerfishes it is related to: raised, it is held upright by a second small spine and lets the fish jam itself into a crevice.

Juveniles live in drifting sargassum out in the open ocean, patterned to match it, and only settle onto a reef once they are large. That is why a small one is a rarity on a dive and a large one is not.

## Also known as

- **English:** scrawled filefish, Scribbled Leatherjacket Filefish, Broom-tail File
- **French:** Baliste écriture, Bourse loulou, Bourse écriture
- **Spanish:** lija trompa, Cachúa Lija Azul, Pez Lija Puntiazul
- **Portuguese:** Cangulo, Cangulo-patriota, Cangulo-pavão
- **Japanese:** ソウシハギ, Soshihagi
- **Russian:** Расписной алутер
- **TAH:** pareva

## Scientific synonyms

- *Aleuterus scriptus* (Osbeck, 1765)
- *Aleuteus scriptus* (Osbeck, 1765)
- *Alutera armata* Garman, 1903
- *Alutera picturata* Poey, 1863
- *Alutera scripta* (Osbeck, 1765)
- *Aluteres pareva* Lesson, 1831
- *Aluteres personatus* Lesson, 1831
- *Aluteres scripta* (Osbeck, 1765)
- *Aluterus renosus* Hollard, 1855
- *Aluterus scripta* (Osbeck, 1765)
- *Aluterus venosus* Hollard, 1855
- *Balistes laevis* Bloch, 1795
- *Balistes liturosus* Shaw, 1804
- *Balistes ornatus* Marion de Procé, 1822
- *Balistes scripta* Osbeck, 1765
- *Balistes scriptus* Osbeck, 1765
- *Monacanthus scriptus* (Osbeck, 1765)
- *Osbeckia scripta* (Osbeck, 1765)

## Range

Djibouti, Federal Republic of Somalia, Gulf of Mexico, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Mozambique, New Zealand, North Atlantic Ocean, Red Sea, Republic of Mauritius, Seychelles, South Africa

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/filefishes/scrawled-filefish)*
*Updated: August 12, 2026*