---
title: Halfspotted Hind (Cephalopholis hemistiktos)
scientific_name: Cephalopholis hemistiktos
common_name: Halfspotted Hind
taxon: Groupers
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-06T22:55:43.543Z
updated: 2026-08-17T11:10:36.123Z
tags: Halfspotted Hind, Cephalopholis hemistiktos, Groupers, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/groupers/halfspotted-hind
---

# Halfspotted Hind (*Cephalopholis hemistiktos*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Groupers (*Epinephelidae*)
- **Size:** up to 35 cm
- **Depth:** 4-55 m
- **Max age:** 26 yrs
- **Diet:** Piscivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Scattered coral heads and rocky ground on open reef
- **Reproduction:** Protogynous hermaphrodite
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- red-brown to reddish body covered in small dark-edged blue spots
- yellow edge to the pectoral fins
- deep red dorsal fin
- keeps a coral head between itself and a diver
- up to 35 cm

A small grouper that lives a long time in a small place. Individuals have been aged at twenty-six years, and a pair holds one territory of up to about sixty square meters - the floor area of a small apartment - defending it together.

The long-term pairing is the unusual part. Most groupers begin as females, change into males, and the large males keep a harem of several females on a much bigger patch of reef. The sex change still happens here, but the social arrangement that comes out of it is a pair rather than a harem.

What it eats is specific enough to have been measured: about two thirds damselfish, most of the rest crustaceans. So it works the coral heads where damselfish live, and it takes them with a short rush from cover rather than by chasing anything down.

It is red-brown under small blue spots, with yellow-edged pectoral fins, and it is a genuinely difficult fish to photograph. Not shy exactly - it simply keeps a coral head between itself and you and moves when you move.

The Red List has it as Least Concern globally, but that is not the whole picture. The Persian Gulf population is assessed separately and comes out Near Threatened, for the ordinary reasons: it is good to eat, it lives close inshore, and it is slow to replace itself.

## Also known as

- **English:** halfspotted grouper, Yellowfin Hind, Halfspotted Hind
- **Arabic:** هند أصفر الزعنفة, هند نصف منقط, Eshnenuh
- **Hebrew:** דקרן חום
- **French:** Vielle d'Arabie
- **Italian:** Cernia pinna gialla
- **German:** Rotmeer-Zackenbarsch
- **Spanish:** Mero Escarlata de Aletas Amarillas, Cherna Arábiga
- **Portuguese:** Garoupa-coralina-do-Mar-Vermelho
- **Dutch:** Rode Zee-tandbaars
- **Czech:** kanic poloskvrnný
- **Chinese:** 半點九棘鱸
- **DA:** Gulfinnet påfuglebars

## Scientific synonyms

- *Serranus hemistictus* Rüppell, 1830
- *Serranus hemistiktos* Rüppell, 1830

## Range

Djibouti, Eritrea, Federal Republic of Somalia, Red Sea

---

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