---
title: Scissortail Sergeant (Abudefduf sexfasciatus)
scientific_name: Abudefduf sexfasciatus
common_name: Scissortail Sergeant
taxon: Pomacentridae
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-14T17:36:41.018Z
updated: 2026-08-15T13:54:13.727Z
tags: Scissortail Sergeant, Abudefduf sexfasciatus, Pomacentridae, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/pomacentridae/scissortail-sergeant
---

# Scissortail Sergeant (*Abudefduf sexfasciatus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Pomacentridae (*Pomacentridae*)
- **Size:** up to 19 cm
- **Depth:** 1-20 m
- **Diet:** Omnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Reef edges and current-swept corners, in loose schools
- **Reproduction:** Egg layer, Gonochoric
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- silver-white body with five black bars and black bands along the tail lobes
- the tail bands are the field mark - the sergeant without them is a different species
- in loose schools above the reef, feeding in midwater
- length up to 19 cm

Barred silver fish in a loose school above a reef edge, with black bands running along both tail lobes - the mark that names it and separates it from the other sergeants here.

Most of the time they are plankton feeders, facing into the current in open water. Then the males go to the bottom and change.

A breeding male takes a patch of hard substrate, cleans it to bare rock, and turns dark blue-gray all over - a color so different from the school above that divers routinely report it as another species. He courts passing females with loops and dips, several may lay on his patch, and he ends up guarding a purple carpet of eggs from every direction at once. He fans them, eats the dead ones, and attacks fish many times his size, including divers who get too close.

The eggs hatch in a few days and the male goes back to being a silver fish in a school. Nineteen centimeters (7.5 in), and one of the few reef fish whose entire appearance depends on what it is doing that week.

## Also known as

- **English:** scissortail sergeant, Scissortail Sergeant Major, Scissor-tail Sergeant
- **Hebrew:** דפדוף שש-פסי
- **French:** Sergent-major à queue en ciseaux, Boeteur Carreaux, Sergent Major
- **Italian:** Pesce sergente coda a forbice
- **German:** Scherenschwanz-Sergeant
- **Spanish:** Sargento Mayor de seis bandas
- **Portuguese:** Donzela-de-seis-faixas, Sargento-cauda-de-tesoura
- **Dutch:** Schaarstaartsergeantvis
- **Czech:** útesník šestipruhý
- **Japanese:** ロクセンスズメダイ, Rokusensuzumedai
- **Chinese:** 六帶豆娘魚 (石剎/石剎婆), 六带豆娘鱼, 六帶豆娘魚
- **Russian:** Шестиполосый абудефдуф
- **AF:** Streepstert-nooientjie
- **CA:** Sergent de Major de Sis Bandes
- **DA:** Saksehalet sergentfisk
- **TAH:** mamo
- **TH:** ปลาสลิดหินบั้งหางกรรไกร

## Scientific synonyms

- *Abudefduf coelestinus* (Cuvier, 1830)
- *Glyphidodon caelestinus* Cuvier, 1830
- *Glyphisodon coelestinus* Cuvier, 1830
- *Labrus sexfasciatus* Lacepède, 1801

## Range

Indian Ocean, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, North Atlantic Ocean, Red Sea, Seychelles, Tanzania

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