---
title: Red Sea Goatfish (Parupeneus forsskali)
scientific_name: Parupeneus forsskali
common_name: Red Sea Goatfish
taxon: Goatfishes
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2023-12-30T20:18:45.070Z
updated: 2026-08-20T16:33:03.809Z
tags: Red Sea Goatfish, Parupeneus forsskali, Goatfishes, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/goatfishes/red-sea-goatfish
---

# Red Sea Goatfish (*Parupeneus forsskali*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Goatfishes (*Mullidae*)
- **Size:** up to 28 cm
- **Depth:** 1-45 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Sand and rubble beside reef, digging with the barbels
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Endemic:** Endemic to the Red Sea
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- pale body with a black stripe from the snout through the eye to below the dorsal fin
- black saddle on the tail stalk with a yellow patch in front of it
- pair of long barbels under the chin, folded away when not digging
- length up to 28 cm

A pale goatfish with a black stripe from the snout through the eye and a black saddle at the tail base, up to 28 cm (11 in). It works sand and rubble patches next to the reef, snout down, with two barbels probing ahead of it.

Those barbels are chemical sensors on stalks. The fish drives them into sediment to taste for buried worms, crustaceans and small fish before committing to a dig, then folds them into a groove under the jaw when it moves on. Wrasses and small groupers follow a working goatfish to take whatever bolts out.

The name is a memorial. Peter Forsskal catalogued this sea in the 1760s on the Danish expedition to Arabia and died of plague in Yemen at thirty-one; his descriptions, published after his death, still carry his authority on a large share of the fish in this catalogue. He described this goatfish under a name that later proved unavailable, and the species was renamed after him instead.

It is also one of the more recent Lessepsian migrants: it reached the eastern Mediterranean in 2013 and has been spreading west since.

## Also known as

- **English:** Forsskal's goatfish, Dash-and-dot Goatfish, Red Sea goatfish
- **Hebrew:** בינתן פורסקל
- **French:** Capucin à bande noire, Rouget-barbet à bande noire, Rouget-barbet Barberin
- **Italian:** Pesce capra di Forsskal, Triglia di forsskal
- **German:** Rotmeer-Barbe
- **Greek:** Μπαρμπούνι της Ερυθράς θάλασσας
- **Portuguese:** Trilha-do-Mar-Vermelho
- **Dutch:** Rode Zee-barbeel
- **Czech:** parmice Forsskalova
- **Chinese:** 福氏副绯鲤
- **Russian:** Красноморская зубатая барабуля
- **DA:** Rødehavsmulle
- **FI:** kaarimullo
- **JAV:** Kakunir, Kuniran
- **MSA:** Biji nangka karang, Butir nangka, Lebai

## Scientific synonyms

- *Mulloides auriflamma* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Mulloidichthys auriflamma* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Mulloidichtys auriflamma* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Mulloidicthyes auriflamma* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Mullus auriflamma* Forsskål, 1775
- *Pseudupeneus forsskali* Fourmanoir & Guézé, 1976

## Range

Djibouti, Eritrea, Federal Republic of Somalia, Kenya, Red Sea, Seychelles

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/goatfishes/red-sea-goatfish)*
*Updated: August 20, 2026*