---
title: Indo-Pacific Sergeant (Abudefduf vaigiensis)
scientific_name: Abudefduf vaigiensis
common_name: Indo-Pacific Sergeant
taxon: Pomacentridae
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-03-29T08:48:13.203Z
updated: 2026-08-17T19:07:49.003Z
tags: Indo-Pacific Sergeant, Abudefduf vaigiensis, Pomacentridae, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/pomacentridae/indo-pacific-sergeant
---

# Indo-Pacific Sergeant (*Abudefduf vaigiensis*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Pomacentridae (*Pomacentridae*)
- **Size:** 20 cm
- **Depth:** 1-15 m
- **Diet:** Omnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Coral and rocky reef, tide pools, around jetties and wrecks
- **Reproduction:** Egg layer
- **Hazard:** Poisonous
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- silvery white with a yellow back and five black bars down the side
- small dark spot at the top of the pectoral fin base
- males turning deep blue-gray while guarding eggs
- in large aggregations in midwater over reef
- up to 20 cm

The striped fish that meets the boat. It gathers in hundreds over reef, around jetties and above wrecks, and it will come to a swimmer immediately, which makes it one of the first fish most people here ever look at properly.

The interesting part happens on the bottom. A male clears a patch of rock, courts a female over it, and then guards the eggs she lays there, fanning them with his fins for the week it takes them to hatch. While he is doing it he changes color, from the pale silver and yellow of the shoal to a dark blue-gray, and he will charge fish many times his size, and divers, without any hesitation at all. A purple-tinged patch of eggs on a rock with a furious dark damselfish over it is a common sight on shallow reef here in summer.

The poison flag is not about the fish attacking anyone. It is ciguatera: this species turns up in poisoning reports, because it grazes algae and detritus off the bottom where the dinoflagellate that produces the toxin grows, and the toxin then concentrates in whatever eats it. Cooking does not remove it.

It has also gone through the Suez Canal and established itself in the eastern Mediterranean.

## Also known as

- **English:** Indo-Pacific sergeant, Indo-Pacific Sergeant Major, Common Sergeant
- **Hebrew:** דפדוף הפסים
- **French:** Sergent-major de Mer Rouge, Sergent-major de l'Indo-Pacifique, Sergent-major Indo-Pacifique
- **Italian:** Pesce Sergente Maggiore Indo-Pacifico
- **German:** Indopazifischer Sergeant
- **Spanish:** Sargento mayor del Pacífico
- **Portuguese:** Sargento-do-Indo-Pacífico
- **Czech:** útesník indopacifický
- **Japanese:** オヤビッチャ, Oyabitcha
- **Chinese:** 五带豆娘鱼, 五帶豆娘魚, 五線雀鯛
- **Russian:** Рыба-сержант
- **AF:** Sersant-majoor
- **CA:** Sergent major de l'Indopacífic
- **DA:** Fembåndet sergentfisk
- **FI:** korallikersanttikala
- **KO:** 해포리고기
- **TAH:** mamo
- **TH:** ปลาตะกรับห้าแถบ

## Scientific synonyms

- *Abudefduf caudobimaculatus* Okada & Ikeda, 1939
- *Abudefduf quinquelineatus* von Bonde, 1934
- *Abudefduf quinquilineatus* von Bonde, 1934
- *Abudefduf vaigensis* (Quoy & Gaimard, 1825)
- *Abudefduf vargensis* (Quoy & Gaimard, 1825)
- *Abudefdus vaigiensis* (Quoy & Gaimard, 1825)
- *Chaetodon tyrwhitti* Bennett, 1830
- *Glyphisodon quadrifasciatus* Bleeker, 1847
- *Glyphisodon rahti* Cuvier, 1830
- *Glyphisodon vaigiensis* Quoy & Gaimard, 1825

## Range

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

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/pomacentridae/indo-pacific-sergeant)*
*Updated: August 17, 2026*