---
title: Barchin Scorpionfish (Sebastapistes strongia)
scientific_name: Sebastapistes strongia
common_name: Barchin Scorpionfish
taxon: Scorpionfishes
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-10-30T21:40:27.118Z
updated: 2026-08-14T20:11:29.816Z
tags: Barchin Scorpionfish, Sebastapistes strongia, Scorpionfishes, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/scorpionfishes/barchin-scorpionfish
---

# Barchin Scorpionfish (*Sebastapistes strongia*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Scorpionfishes (*Scorpaenidae*)
- **Size:** up to 10 cm
- **Depth:** 1-37 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Inside branching coral heads, especially Pocillopora
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Dangerous, Venomous
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- small pale scorpionfish with a dark bar across the chin
- fine dark speckling over the body, no bright spots
- wedged among coral branches rather than on open rock
- length up to 10 cm

Ten centimeters (4 in) of pale speckled scorpionfish living inside a branching coral head, with a dark bar across the chin that gives it its name.

It shares that address with the yellowspotted scorpionfish, and the two are the reef's coral-dwelling ambushers - a niche that solves both halves of the problem at once, since nothing large can reach in and the prey comes to the coral anyway.

The cost is that the fish is tied to living coral. Where colonies bleach and die, the branches fill with algae and sediment and the residents go with them, which makes this group one of the quieter casualties of a bad summer.

It hunts small shrimps and fish among the branches at night. The spines are venomous like the family's, and the sting scenario is the usual one: a hand grabbing a coral head in current.

## Also known as

- **English:** barchin scorpionfish, Banda Scorpionfish, brownbanded stingfish
- **French:** Poisson-scorpion à menton barré
- **Portuguese:** Peixe-pedra-de-bochecha-marcada
- **Czech:** paropušnice měnlivá, ropušnice papuánská
- **Japanese:** マダラフサカサゴ, Madarafusakasago
- **Chinese:** 班達圓鱗鮋, 眉鬚鱗頭鮋, 石狗公
- **Russian:** Коричневополосый шиповатый окунь
- **FI:** kaunoskorpionisimppu

## Scientific synonyms

- *Kantapus oglinus* Smith, 1947
- *Phenacoscorpius nebulosus* Smith, 1958
- *Scorpaena oglinus* (Smith, 1947)
- *Scorpaena strongia* Cuvier, 1829
- *Scorpaena tristis* Klunzinger, 1870
- *Sebastapistes oglinus* (Smith, 1947)
- *Sebastapistes tristis* (Klunzinger, 1870)

## Range

Indian Ocean, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Republic of Mauritius, Seychelles, South Africa

---

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