---
title: Humbug Dascyllus (Dascyllus aruanus)
scientific_name: Dascyllus aruanus
common_name: Humbug Dascyllus
taxon: Pomacentridae
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-07-27T11:23:04.075Z
updated: 2026-08-15T14:09:49.689Z
tags: Humbug Dascyllus, Dascyllus aruanus, Pomacentridae, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/pomacentridae/humbug-dascyllus
---

# Humbug Dascyllus (*Dascyllus aruanus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Pomacentridae (*Pomacentridae*)
- **Size:** up to 10 cm
- **Depth:** 0-20 m
- **Diet:** Omnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Branching coral heads in shallow lagoons
- **Reproduction:** Egg layer, Protogynous hermaphrodite
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- white body with two broad black bars and a black snout
- small groups hovering directly over one branching coral head
- never far from the branches - the whole group drops in at a threat
- length up to 10 cm

Black and white bars over a branching coral head, in a group of a dozen that never leaves it. The pattern gives the fish its English name and the whole group its character: a humbug is a striped sweet, and nothing else on the reef is marked quite this starkly.

The group has a structure. It is a size-ordered hierarchy with one dominant breeding pair at the top, and the fish below queue - a subordinate that grows too fast is chased out, so individuals regulate their own growth to stay a safe step behind the fish above them. When the top fish disappears everyone moves up one place, and a female can become male on the way.

The coral head is the whole world. These fish do not move between colonies as adults, they shelter in the same branches every night, and when the colony bleaches and dies the group is left standing over a skeleton with nowhere to drop into.

Males clean a patch at the base of the coral, court with a sharp clicking sound, and guard the eggs there until they hatch.

## Also known as

- **English:** banded dascyllus, Banded Humbug, whitetail dascyllus
- **French:** Demoiselle à trois bandes noires, Demoiselle à queue blanche
- **Italian:** Damigella fasciata orientale, Damigella juventina orientale
- **German:** Dreibinden-Preußenfisch
- **Spanish:** Damisela de tres Bandas
- **Portuguese:** Donzela-de-cauda-branca
- **Dutch:** Markiezinnetje
- **Czech:** komorník běloocasý
- **Japanese:** ミスジリュウキュウスズメダイ, Misujiryukyusuzumedai
- **Chinese:** 三帶圓雀鯛, 三帶圓雀鯛(三間雀), 三間雀
- **Russian:** Зебровидный дасцилл
- **CA:** Dascyllus ratllat del Pacífic
- **DA:** Trestribet jomfrufisk
- **TAH:** 'atoti
- **TH:** ปลาสลิดหินม้าลาย

## Scientific synonyms

- *Abudefduf caroli* Curtiss, 1938
- *Chaetodon arcuanus* Gmelin, 1789
- *Chaetodon aruanus* Linnaeus, 1758
- *Dascyllus arnanus* (Linnaeus, 1758)
- *Dascyllus blochii* Castelnau, 1875
- *Pomacentrus devisi* Jordan & Seale, 1906
- *Pomacentrus emamo* Lesson, 1831
- *Pomacentrus trifasciatus* De Vis, 1884
- *Tetradrachmum arcuatum* Cantor, 1850
- *Tetradrachmum aruanum* (Linnaeus, 1758)

## Range

Djibouti, East Africa, Eritrea, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Red Sea, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania

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