---
title: Ambon Scorpionfish (Pteroidichthys amboinensis)
scientific_name: Pteroidichthys amboinensis
common_name: Ambon Scorpionfish
taxon: Scorpionfishes
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-10-30T20:32:04.628Z
updated: 2026-08-14T19:12:36.574Z
tags: Ambon Scorpionfish, Pteroidichthys amboinensis, Scorpionfishes, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/scorpionfishes/ambon-scorpionfish
---

# Ambon Scorpionfish (*Pteroidichthys amboinensis*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Scorpionfishes (*Scorpaenidae*)
- **Size:** up to 12 cm
- **Depth:** 7-43 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Rare
- **Habitat:** Silty sand and rubble slopes, among weed and debris
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Dangerous, Venomous
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- long branched tentacles over each eye, often longer than the eye itself
- shaggy skin flaps along the jaw and body, in yellow, pink, purple or brown
- hairy, weed-like outline with no clean edge anywhere
- length up to 12 cm

Twelve centimeters (5 in) of fish disguised as a clump of weed, with branched tentacles over the eyes longer than the eyes themselves. It is one of the great prizes of muck diving, and finding one is entirely a matter of a guide who knows the individual animal.

The disguise has a maintenance problem: anything sitting still on a silty slope gets colonized. Algae, hydroids and diatoms settle on it, and after a few weeks the fish is genuinely overgrown. So it molts. Every couple of weeks the whole outer skin comes off in one piece, taking the growth with it, and a clean animal walks out - which is also why the same fish can look purple one month and yellow the next.

It walks rather than swims, stepping across the bottom on thickened lower pectoral rays, and hunts by waiting for something small to pass within a body length.

The dorsal spines are venomous like the rest of the family's. Nobody is stung by one under water; the risk is a hand placed on silty bottom that turns out to be occupied. Hot water at 45 C (113 F) and a doctor if it happens.

## Also known as

- **English:** Ambon Scorpionfish, Godfrey's Scorpionfish
- **Spanish:** Pez Escorpión de Godfrey
- **Czech:** paropušnice proměnlivá
- **Japanese:** ツノカサゴ, Tsunokasago
- **Chinese:** 安朋狹簑鮋, 安汶狹蓑鮋, 安邦狹蓑鮋
- **Russian:** Амбоинский птероидихт

## Scientific synonyms

- *Pteroidichthys godfreyi* (Whitley, 1954)
- *Rhinopias godfreyi* Whitley, 1954

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/scorpionfishes/ambon-scorpionfish)*
*Updated: August 14, 2026*