---
title: Yellowfin Goatfish (Mulloidichthys vanicolensis)
scientific_name: Mulloidichthys vanicolensis
common_name: Yellowfin Goatfish
taxon: Goatfishes
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2023-12-30T20:23:23.138Z
updated: 2026-08-17T14:10:00.071Z
tags: Yellowfin Goatfish, Mulloidichthys vanicolensis, Goatfishes, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/goatfishes/yellowfin-goatfish
---

# Yellowfin Goatfish (*Mulloidichthys vanicolensis*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Goatfishes (*Mullidae*)
- **Size:** 38 cm
- **Depth:** 1-113 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Lagoons and seaward reefs; sand and rubble at night
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- a pair of barbels under the chin, folded into a groove when not in use
- yellow stripe along the side and yellow fins
- red-orange back, white belly
- dense motionless daytime schools, often mixed with blue-striped snapper
- up to 38 cm

The two feelers under its chin are the whole design. They are barbels, they carry a dense field of taste buds and chemical sensors, and the fish drives them into sand to find animals it cannot see: worms, small crustaceans, brittle stars, whatever is buried in the top few centimeters. When it has finished it folds them back into a groove under the chin and they disappear, which is why a goatfish hanging in midwater looks like an ordinary fish.

This species does its digging at night. By day it does the opposite of hunting: dense, motionless schools hanging over the reef, sometimes hundreds of fish, going nowhere.

Those schools are often mixed. Yellowfin goatfish shoal with blue-striped snapper, and in a mixed group the goatfish shifts to a yellower cast that matches the snappers around it, so a predator scanning the school for the one fish that looks different finds nothing to settle on.

Red-orange along the back, white below, a yellow stripe down the side and yellow fins, up to thirty-eight centimeters.

## Also known as

- **English:** yellowfin goatfish, Golden banded goatfish, Banded goatfish
- **French:** Capucin à nageoires jaunes, Surmulet à nageoires jaunes, Capucin de Vanicolo
- **Spanish:** Salmonete vanicolense
- **Japanese:** アカヒメジ, Akahimeji
- **Chinese:** 无斑拟羊鱼, 無斑擬羊魚, 秋姑
- **Russian:** Желтопёрая мелкозубая барабуля

## Scientific synonyms

- *Mullodichthys vanicolensis* (Valenciennes, 1831)
- *Mulloides erythrinus* Klunzinger, 1884
- *Mulloides vanicolensis* (Valenciennes, 1831)
- *Mulloidichtys vanicolensis* (Valenciennes, 1831)
- *Pseudopeneus vanicolensis* (Valenciennes, 1831)
- *Pseudupeneus vanicolensis* (Valenciennes, 1831)
- *Upeneus vanicolensis* Valenciennes, 1831

## Range

Federal Republic of Somalia, Indian Ocean, Mozambique, New Zealand, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania

---

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