---
title: Moorish Idol (Zanclus cornutus)
scientific_name: Zanclus cornutus
common_name: Moorish Idol
taxon: Moorish idols
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2026-08-03T15:00:54.932Z
updated: 2026-08-22T22:47:58.496Z
tags: Moorish Idol, Zanclus cornutus, Moorish idols, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/moorish-idols/moorish-idol
---

# Moorish Idol (*Zanclus cornutus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Moorish idols (*Zanclidae*)
- **Size:** 23 cm
- **Depth:** 1-180 m
- **Diet:** Spongivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Reef flats, lagoons, coral and rocky reefs
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- two broad black bands on white, with a yellow saddle over the snout
- dorsal fin drawn out into a white filament longer than the fish
- tube snout with a small mouth full of bristle-like teeth
- adults with a pair of small bony horns above the eyes
- up to 23 cm

Nothing else in the sea looks like this, and that is literal: it is the only living member of its family, with no close relatives anywhere.

It is a surgeonfish relative that went its own way a long time ago and kept a shape nothing since has repeated: a disc of a body, a tube snout, and a dorsal fin drawn out into a white filament that can trail longer than the fish itself. Juveniles trail even more of it.

What it eats explains most of the rest. About seventy percent of the diet is sponge, picked out of crevices with a snout full of long bristle-like teeth. Sponges are a poor food, defended with silica spicules and chemistry, and a diet built on them means constant work with a specialized tool. It is also the reason this species is famous in the aquarium trade for the wrong thing: it is one of the hardest fish in the world to keep alive, because almost nobody can supply what it actually eats, and most of the ones sold die within months.

On the reef it is common, in pairs or small groups, from the shallows down to nearly two hundred meters, and it will let you approach if you are slow.

The species name means horned, for the two small bony bumps adults carry above the eyes.

## Also known as

- **English:** Moorish idol
- **French:** Cocher blanc, Idole maure, Porte-enseigne
- **Italian:** Idolo moresco
- **German:** Halfterfisch
- **Spanish:** ídolo moro
- **Portuguese:** Zanclo-mouro, Ídolo-mourisco
- **Dutch:** Maskerwimpelvis
- **Polish:** Idolek mauretański
- **Czech:** bičonoš zobanovitý
- **Japanese:** ツノダシ, Tsunodashi
- **Chinese:** 角蝶, 角蝶魚, 镰鱼
- **Russian:** Мавританский идол
- **CA:** Zancle Morisc
- **DA:** Zanclide
- **FI:** Sarvikala
- **FIJ:** tivitivi
- **HU:** zászlóshal
- **KO:** 깃대돔
- **TAH:** pahara tore
- **TH:** ปลาผีเสื้อเทวรูป, ปลาโนรีเทวรูป

## Scientific synonyms

- *Chaetodon canescens* Linnaeus, 1758
- *Chaetodon cornutus* Linnaeus, 1758
- *Zanclus canescens* (Linnaeus, 1758)
- *Zanclus cornatus* (Linnaeus, 1758)
- *Zanclus cornotus* (Linnaeus, 1758)

## Range

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

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/moorish-idols/moorish-idol)*
*Updated: August 22, 2026*