---
title: Guam Scorpionfish (Scorpaenodes guamensis)
scientific_name: Scorpaenodes guamensis
common_name: Guam Scorpionfish
taxon: Scorpionfishes
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-10-30T20:38:07.723Z
updated: 2026-08-14T19:38:37.618Z
tags: Guam Scorpionfish, Scorpaenodes guamensis, Scorpionfishes, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/scorpionfishes/guam-scorpionfish
---

# Guam Scorpionfish (*Scorpaenodes guamensis*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Scorpionfishes (*Scorpaenidae*)
- **Size:** up to 14 cm
- **Depth:** 1-20 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Crevices and undercuts in shallow coral rock
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Dangerous, Venomous
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- small red-brown scorpionfish with dark blotches and a pale saddle behind the head
- wedged into a hole or an undercut rather than sitting in the open
- spot on the rear of the gill cover
- length up to 14 cm

A small red-brown scorpionfish that does the opposite of what the family is known for: instead of lying in the open pretending to be a rock, it reverses into a crevice and watches from inside it.

That is the trade this genus made. A fish sitting in the open needs perfect camouflage and pays for it with a body built for stillness; a fish inside a hole needs less disguise and keeps the option of hunting at the entrance. So these are more mobile, more common and far less noticed than their big relatives.

It comes out at night to take small crustaceans and fish across shallow rubble, and returns to the same hole before light.

Fourteen centimeters (5.5 in) and venomous like everything else in the family. It is also one of the fish most likely to be behind a sting, precisely because it lives in the holes people put their hands into.

## Also known as

- **English:** Guam scorpionfish, Guam scorpion cod, Common Scorpionfish
- **French:** Poisson-scorpion de Guam
- **Portuguese:** Peixe-pedra-do-Guam
- **Czech:** paropušnice guamská
- **Japanese:** グアムカサゴ, Guamukasago
- **Chinese:** 石狗公, 石頭魚, 虎魚
- **FIJ:** tagitagikaua
- **TAH:** nohu tarao

## Scientific synonyms

- *Centropogon echinatus* Macleay, 1881
- *Scorpaena chilioprista* Rüppell, 1838
- *Scorpaena erinacea* Garman, 1903
- *Scorpaena guamensis* Quoy & Gaimard, 1824
- *Scorpaena polylepis* Bleeker, 1851
- *Scorpaena rubropunctata* Cuvier, 1829
- *Scorpaenodes guamnsis* (Quoy & Gaimard, 1824)
- *Scorpaenopsis quiescens* Seale, 1906
- *Sebastes minutus* Cuvier, 1829

## Range

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

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