---
title: Sargassum Fish (Histrio histrio)
scientific_name: Histrio histrio
common_name: Sargassum Fish
taxon: Frogfishes
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-10-27T11:27:29.292Z
updated: 2026-08-22T14:54:01.138Z
tags: Sargassum Fish, Histrio histrio, Frogfishes, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/frogfishes/sargassum-fish
---

# Sargassum Fish (*Histrio histrio*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Frogfishes (*Antennariidae*)
- **Size:** up to 20 cm
- **Depth:** 0-10 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Cathemeral
- **Rarity:** Rare
- **Habitat:** Drifting sargassum weed at the surface, offshore and inshore
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- body covered in fleshy tabs and filaments that copy the weed it lives in
- yellow-brown mottled, with dark streaks radiating from the eye
- clings to weed with hand-like pectoral fins rather than swimming
- length up to 20 cm

A frogfish that lives in floating weed rather than on the bottom: 20 cm (8 in) of mottled yellow-brown body covered in fleshy tabs that copy the bladders and fronds of sargassum exactly. In a raft of drifting weed it is invisible until it moves.

It climbs. The pectoral fins have a joint that works like an elbow and grip like hands, and the fish hauls itself through the weed rather than swimming, staying inside the raft as it drifts across an ocean.

It eats anything it can fit in, including other sargassum fish. The strike is the family's - a suction gulp in a few milliseconds - and the stomach stretches enough to take prey as large as the fish itself. In captivity a tank of them becomes a tank of one.

It can also survive out of water for a surprising time, and there are records of individuals hauling across exposed weed at the surface. The whole animal is built for a habitat that is not a place at all, but a moving pile of plants - which is why it turns up anywhere the current dumps the weed, including onto beaches after a storm.

## Also known as

- **English:** Sargassumfish
- **French:** sargassier
- **Spanish:** pez sargazo

## Scientific synonyms

- *Antenarius mesogallicus* (Valenciennes, 1837)
- *Antennarius barbatulus* (Eydoux & Souleyet, 1850)
- *Antennarius gibbus* (Mitchill, 1815)
- *Antennarius histrio* (Linnaeus, 1758)
- *Antennarius inops* Poey, 1881
- *Antennarius laevigatus* (Cuvier, 1817)
- *Antennarius lioderma* Bleeker, 1864
- *Antennarius nesogallicus* (Valenciennes, 1837)
- *Antennarius nitidus* Bennett, 1827
- *Antennarius raninus* (Tilesius, 1809)
- *Cheironectes laevigatus* Cuvier, 1817
- *Cheironectes pictus*
- *Cheironectes pictus vittatus* Richardson, 1844
- *Cheironectes raninus* (Tilesius, 1809)
- *Chironectes arcticus* Düben & Koren, 1846
- *Chironectes barbatulatus* Eydoux & Souleyet, 1850
- *Chironectes barbatulus* Eydoux & Souleyet, 1850
- *Chironectes gibbus* (Mitchill, 1815)
- *Chironectes histrio* (Linnaeus, 1758)
- *Chironectes laevigatus* Cuvier, 1817
- *Chironectes nesogallicus* Valenciennes, 1837
- *Chironectes pictus* Valenciennes, 1837
- *Chironectes sonntagii* Müller, 1864
- *Chironectes sontagii* Müller, 1864
- *Chironectes tumidus* (Osbeck, 1765)

## Range

Gulf of Mexico, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Madagascar, New Zealand, North Atlantic Ocean, Republic of Mauritius, Seychelles, South Africa

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/frogfishes/sargassum-fish)*
*Updated: August 22, 2026*