---
title: Bartail Flathead (Platycephalus indicus)
scientific_name: Platycephalus indicus
common_name: Bartail Flathead
taxon: Flatheads
conservation_status: DD - Data Deficient
published: 2024-10-31T17:41:21.102Z
updated: 2026-08-13T21:14:21.275Z
tags: Bartail Flathead, Platycephalus indicus, Flatheads, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/flatheads/bartail-flathead
---

# Bartail Flathead (*Platycephalus indicus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Flatheads (*Platycephalidae*)
- **Size:** up to 100 cm
- **Depth:** 1-100 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Sand and silt, half-buried in the open
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Protandrous hermaphrodite
- **Hazard:** Dangerous, Venomous
- **Conservation status:** DD - Data Deficient

## How to recognise it

- head flattened top to bottom, body tapering to a narrow tail
- eyes on top of the head with a fringed flap over each pupil
- sandy brown with faint bars, and dark bands across the tail
- lies in the open on sand, motionless, and lets divers pass
- length up to 100 cm

A meter (3 ft) of fish pressed flat against the sand with its eyes on top of its head, lying in the open, relying entirely on not being recognized as a fish. Most divers swim over one every dive and see none.

The eyes carry a detail worth looking for: a fringed flap of tissue hangs over each pupil, breaking up the round black shape that would otherwise give the animal away, and it can be raised or lowered. An ambush predator's last problem is always its own eye, and this is one of the neater solutions to it.

It eats by waiting. Small fish and shrimps pass, the mouth opens, and the strike is over before anything registers - no chase, no pursuit, nothing that costs energy.

It also changes sex, but the other way round from most reef fish here: flatheads start male and become female as they grow, so the large individuals are the ones producing eggs. It is a commercial food fish across its range, and the fishery takes the big ones first - which in this arrangement means the females.

## Also known as

- **English:** Indian flathead, Bartail Flathead, Bar-tailed Flathead
- **Arabic:** مسطح الرأس شريطي الذيل, Ohara, Wahar
- **Hebrew:** שטח-ראש הודי, תנינון הודי
- **French:** Platycéphale Indien
- **Spanish:** Chato Indico
- **Greek:** Platykefalopsaro
- **Portuguese:** Sapateiro do Indico, Hlekende, Nyatshendze
- **Dutch:** Indische platkopvis
- **Swedish:** Kochi
- **Polish:** Plaskoglów indyjski
- **Czech:** zploštělec indický
- **Japanese:** ミナミマゴチ, Kochi, Minamimagochi
- **Chinese:** 印度牛尾魚, 印度鯒, 牛尾
- **Russian:** Indiyskiy ploskogolov, Индийский плоскоголов
- **AF:** Balkstert platkop, Vleistokvis
- **DA:** Indisk fladhovedulk
- **FI:** pyrstölättäsimppu
- **KO:** 양태
- **MSA:** Bebaji
- **TH:** ปลาหางควายหางแถบ, ปลาหางควายอันดามัน, Hangkhwai
- **VI:** cá chai

## Scientific synonyms

- *Callionymus indicus* Linnaeus, 1758
- *Cottus insidiator* Forsskål, 1775
- *Cottus madagascariensis* Lacepède, 1801
- *Platycephalus insidiator* (Forsskål, 1775)

## Range

Djibouti, Eritrea, Federal Republic of Somalia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mediterranean Sea - Eastern Basin, Mozambique, North Atlantic Ocean, Red Sea, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania

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