---
title: Blackspot Sergeant (Abudefduf sordidus)
scientific_name: Abudefduf sordidus
common_name: Blackspot Sergeant
taxon: Pomacentridae
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-14T17:32:25.748Z
updated: 2026-08-15T13:54:13.752Z
tags: Blackspot Sergeant, Abudefduf sordidus, Pomacentridae, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/pomacentridae/blackspot-sergeant
---

# Blackspot Sergeant (*Abudefduf sordidus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Pomacentridae (*Pomacentridae*)
- **Size:** up to 24 cm
- **Depth:** 0-5 m
- **Diet:** Omnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Surge zone and shallow rocky shorelines
- **Reproduction:** Egg layer, Gonochoric
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- heavy-bodied sergeant with dark bars and a black spot at the top of the tail base
- yellowish tinge on the back in adults
- in white water on the reef crest, rarely deeper than a few meters
- length up to 24 cm

The largest sergeant here, twenty-four centimeters (9.5 in), and the one that lives where the waves break.

Surge is a habitat with few residents and few predators, and the fish built for it are heavy-bodied with strong pectoral fins - the same solution the surge wrasse arrived at. It grazes algae off rock, takes small invertebrates, and holds position in water that would push most reef fish off the crest.

Males nest in the same zone, on rock cleaned to bare stone, and guard eggs through conditions that would tear a nest apart anywhere less solid. A guarding male in surge is one of the more impressive sights on a reef flat: he does not leave the patch, whatever comes over it.

It is also one of the few reef fish that a snorkeler meets before a diver does, since the first two meters of water are where it lives and the last place anyone with a tank goes.

## Also known as

- **English:** blackspot sergeant, blackspot sergeant major, Black-spot Sergeant
- **Hebrew:** דפדוף הכתם
- **French:** Sergent à tache noire, Sergent-major à tache noire, Boeteur Roche
- **Italian:** Pesce sergente macchia nera
- **German:** Feldwebelfisch
- **Spanish:** Sargento mayor de mancha negra
- **Portuguese:** Sargento-de-pinta-preta
- **Czech:** útesník černoskvrnný
- **Japanese:** シマスズメダイ, Shimasuzumedai
- **Chinese:** 厚殼仔, 梭地豆娘魚, 梭地雀鯛
- **Russian:** Чернополосый aбудефдуф
- **AF:** Kolnooientjie
- **CA:** Sergent de punt negre
- **DA:** Sortplettet sergentfisk
- **KO:** 줄자돔
- **TAH:** pa'e'e
- **TH:** ปลาสลิดหินจุดดำ

## Scientific synonyms

- *Abudefduf tridentatus* Clark, 1938
- *Chaetodon sordidus* Forsskål, 1775
- *Glyphidodon adenensis* Günther, 1867
- *Glyphidodon leucopleura* Day, 1877
- *Glyphisodon geant* Liénard, 1829
- *Glyphisodon géant* Liénard, 1829
- *Glyphisodon gigas* Allen, 1991
- *Glyphisodon sordidus*

## Range

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

---

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