---
title: Sand Lizardfish (Synodus dermatogenys)
scientific_name: Synodus dermatogenys
common_name: Sand Lizardfish
taxon: Lizardfishes
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2023-12-30T20:54:06.027Z
updated: 2026-08-13T15:03:15.892Z
tags: Sand Lizardfish, Synodus dermatogenys, Lizardfishes, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/lizardfishes/sand-lizardfish
---

# Sand Lizardfish (*Synodus dermatogenys*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Lizardfishes (*Synodontidae*)
- **Size:** up to 24 cm
- **Depth:** 1-70 m
- **Diet:** Piscivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Open sand and rubble, half-buried in the open
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- cigar-shaped fish resting on the bottom propped on its pelvic fins
- sandy with a row of dark diamond blotches along the flank
- large mouth reaching well past the eye, full of fine needle teeth
- length up to 24 cm

A cigar of a fish lying on open sand, propped on its pelvic fins, patterned to disappear against it. Most divers pass one every dive; the fish does not move until it does.

The strike is vertical. A lizardfish buries itself with a wriggle until only the eyes and snout show, waits for something to pass above, and comes straight up out of the bottom in a single burst - the whole event lasting a fraction of a second. Prey up to half its own length is taken.

The teeth are everywhere. Needle-sharp and slightly recurved, they line the jaws, the palate and the tongue, so a fish that is caught is caught in a mouth full of hooks. Nothing that goes in comes out.

Because it hunts by sitting still, it tolerates a slow approach better than almost any fish here, which makes it one of the easiest subjects on sand - and it is one of the fish most often photographed by accident, because it is in the background of half the shots taken over a sandy bottom.

## Also known as

- **English:** Sand Lizardfish, Bluestripe Lizardfish, Clearfin Lizardfish
- **French:** Poisson-lézard à ligne bleue, Poisson-lézard à nageoires jaunes, Poisson-lézard de Sable
- **Italian:** Pesce lucertola della sabbia
- **German:** Sand-Eidechsenfisch
- **Spanish:** Chile áspero
- **Portuguese:** Peixe-lagarto-de-linha-azul
- **Dutch:** Zandhagedisvis
- **Czech:** ještěrohlavec hnědoskvrnný, ještěrohlavec skvrněný
- **Japanese:** ミナミアカエソ, Minamiakaeso
- **Chinese:** 狗母, 狗母梭, 番狗母
- **Russian:** Ящероголов Фаулера
- **TAH:** moo'anae

## Scientific synonyms

- *Synodus amaranthus* Waples & Randall, 1989
- *Synodus dermatogennis* Fowler, 1912

## Range

Comoros, Federal Republic of Somalia, Indian Ocean, South Africa

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/lizardfishes/sand-lizardfish)*
*Updated: August 13, 2026*