---
title: Bluntsnout Gregory (Stegastes punctatus)
scientific_name: Stegastes punctatus
common_name: Bluntsnout Gregory
taxon: Pomacentridae
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-14T15:22:03.391Z
updated: 2026-08-15T13:54:13.650Z
tags: Bluntsnout Gregory, Stegastes punctatus, Pomacentridae, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/pomacentridae/bluntsnout-gregory
---

# Bluntsnout Gregory (*Stegastes punctatus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Pomacentridae (*Pomacentridae*)
- **Size:** up to 13 cm
- **Depth:** 1-8 m
- **Diet:** Herbivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Shallow rock and dead coral, in defended territories
- **Reproduction:** Egg layer, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Dangerous
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- stocky dark brown fish with a blunt rounded snout
- juveniles with a bright blue line along the back and a dark spot on the dorsal fin
- hovers over one patch of rock and returns to it constantly
- length up to 13 cm

A stocky, blunt-faced damselfish holding a patch of shallow rock and rarely straying more than a meter from it.

A territory in this genus is an asset with a value. It contains a food supply the fish maintains, a hole to sleep in, and a cleaned patch of rock where eggs will be laid, and the size and quality of that patch decides whether a male gets to breed at all. Fish fight over them, inherit them, and are evicted from them; a good territory changes hands rather than disappearing.

The eggs are laid on the cleaned rock and guarded by the male, who fans them, picks out dead ones and attacks anything that comes near for the several days it takes them to hatch. That is the other half of what the territory is for.

Juveniles look nothing like the adults - a bright blue line along the back and a dark eyespot on the fin - and hold their own small territories from the day they settle. Thirteen centimeters (5 in) of fish that spends its life on a few square meters.

## Also known as

- **English:** Bluntsnout Gregory, Blunt-snout Gregory, Farmerfish
- **French:** Grégoire ponctué, Poisson-fermier
- **Italian:** Pesce damigella
- **Spanish:** Chopita del Mar Rojo
- **Portuguese:** Donzela-reticulada
- **Japanese:** ハナナガスズメダイ, Hananagasuzumedai
- **CA:** Damisel·la reticulada
- **TAH:** 'Atoti, 'at

## Scientific synonyms

- *Eupomacentrus kumkum* (Montrouzier, 1857)
- *Pomacentrus cyanospilos* Bleeker, 1853
- *Pomacentrus cyanospilus* Bleeker, 1853
- *Pomacentrus kumkum* Montrouzier, 1857
- *Pomacentrus obscurus* Thiollière, 1857
- *Pomacentrus prosopotaenioides* Bleeker, 1852
- *Pomacentrus punctatus* Quoy & Gaimard, 1825

---

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