---
title: False Stonefish (Scorpaenopsis diabolus)
scientific_name: Scorpaenopsis diabolus
common_name: False Stonefish
taxon: Scorpionfishes
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-10-30T21:05:27.067Z
updated: 2026-08-13T23:29:35.833Z
tags: False Stonefish, Scorpaenopsis diabolus, Scorpionfishes, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/scorpionfishes/false-stonefish
---

# False Stonefish (*Scorpaenopsis diabolus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Scorpionfishes (*Scorpaenidae*)
- **Size:** up to 30 cm
- **Depth:** 1-70 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Rubble and coral rock, sitting in the open
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Dangerous, Venomous
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- humped back with a deep dip behind the head, unlike the flat-backed true stonefish
- flashes bright orange and black pectoral fin undersides when it moves
- skin flaps and warts over a mottled brown body
- eyes on the sides of the head, not on top
- length up to 30 cm

The fish people think is a stonefish, and the confusion is worth clearing up in both directions: this one is dangerous too, just less so, and it gives itself away in a way a real stonefish never does.

When it moves, it flashes. The undersides of the pectoral fins are bright orange with black bands, hidden completely at rest and shown deliberately as the fish shifts position - a warning display aimed at whatever disturbed it. No true stonefish does this. The profile helps as well: this species has a humped back with a distinct dip behind the head, where a stonefish is flat and lumpen throughout.

The venom is the family's, delivered by grooved dorsal spines under downward pressure, and a sting is severe without being in the same class as *Synanceia*. Treatment is identical - hot water at about 45 C (113 F) to break down the protein, then a doctor.

It sits on rubble in the open rather than burying itself, waits for small fish and crustaceans to pass, and takes them with a strike measured in milliseconds. Thirty centimeters (12 in) of fish that looks like a piece of the reef until it opens its fins.

## Also known as

- **English:** devil scorpionfish, False Scorpionfish, false stonefish
- **French:** Poisson Pierre Faux, Poisson-scorpion diable
- **Japanese:** ニライカサゴ, Niraikasago
- **Chinese:** 毒擬鮋, 沙薑虎, 沙薑鱠仔
- **TAH:** nohu tarao

## Scientific synonyms

- *Scorpaena diabolis* (Cuvier, 1829)
- *Scorpaena diabolus* Cuvier, 1829
- *Scorpaenopsis catocala* Jordan & Evermann, 1903
- *Scorpaenopsis diabola* (Cuvier, 1829)
- *Scorpaenopsis diabolis* (Cuvier, 1829)

## Range

Comoros, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Red Sea, Seychelles, South Africa

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/scorpionfishes/false-stonefish)*
*Updated: August 13, 2026*