---
title: Blackspotted Rubberlip (Plectorhinchus gaterinus)
scientific_name: Plectorhinchus gaterinus
common_name: Blackspotted Rubberlip
taxon: Grunts
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2023-12-24T14:18:29.229Z
updated: 2026-08-15T23:05:48.271Z
tags: Blackspotted Rubberlip, Plectorhinchus gaterinus, Grunts, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/grunts/blackspotted-rubberlip
---

# Blackspotted Rubberlip (*Plectorhinchus gaterinus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Grunts (*Haemulidae*)
- **Size:** 50 cm
- **Depth:** 5-55 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Coastal reefs, slopes and sand banks; juveniles in seagrass
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- silvery body covered in even rows of black spots, yellowish below
- yellow fins, also spotted
- thick fleshy lips and a small mouth
- juveniles striped, not spotted, until about 10 cm
- up to 50 cm

The family is called the grunts, and the name is literal. These fish grind the tooth plates at the back of the throat, and the swim bladder sitting right behind works as a sounding box, so the noise carries. Land one and it will grunt in your hands.

By day they do almost nothing. Thirty or forty hang under a ledge or against the reef slope, evenly spaced, facing into the current, and they will let a diver come close. The work happens after dark, when the school breaks up and the fish spread onto sand and seagrass after small fish and crustaceans.

Juveniles look like a different animal: silver-gray with five to seven brown stripes running the length of the body. At around 10 to 12 cm the stripes break apart into the rows of black spots the adult carries for life.

The name came off a Red Sea dock. Forsskal collected the fish on the Arabian coast in the 1760s, and gaterinus is gaterin, what the local fishermen called it. It is still caught and sold fresh, though nobody rates it: the flesh carries a faint iodine taste.

## Also known as

- **English:** blackspotted grunt, Blackspotted Rubberlip, blackspotted rubberlips
- **Arabic:** Hilali
- **French:** Poisson jaune et noir, Diagramme moucheté
- **Italian:** Grugnitore a macchie nere
- **German:** Schwarzpunkt-Süßlippe, Schwarztupfen-Süßlippe
- **Spanish:** Bakoko de manchas negras
- **Portuguese:** Peixe-arlequim-de-pintas-pretas
- **Russian:** Чернопятнистый сладкогуб
- **CA:** Bakoko lloro
- **DA:** Plettet gryntefisk

## Scientific synonyms

- *Gaterin gaterinus* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Plectorhynchus gaterinus* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Plectorinchus gaterinus* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Sciaena abumgaterin* Forsskål, 1775
- *Sciaena gaterina* Forsskål, 1775

## Range

Comoros, Djibouti, Federal Republic of Somalia, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Red Sea, South Africa, Tanzania

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/grunts/blackspotted-rubberlip)*
*Updated: August 15, 2026*