---
title: Ocellated Waspfish (Apistus carinatus)
scientific_name: Apistus carinatus
common_name: Ocellated Waspfish
taxon: Scorpionfishes
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-10-30T21:47:17.384Z
updated: 2026-08-14T19:40:01.624Z
tags: Ocellated Waspfish, Apistus carinatus, Scorpionfishes, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/scorpionfishes/ocellated-waspfish
---

# Ocellated Waspfish (*Apistus carinatus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Scorpionfishes (*Scorpaenidae*)
- **Size:** up to 20 cm
- **Depth:** 14-50 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Rare
- **Habitat:** Open sand and mud flats, buried by day
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Dangerous, Venomous
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- tall sail-like dorsal fin with a black eyespot at the front
- three long free rays under each pectoral fin, trailed along the bottom
- pale pink-brown body with silvery sides
- length up to 20 cm

A pale fish with a sail on its back and six trailing feelers, moving slowly over open sand at night. The eyespot at the front of that sail is a decoy - a predator that goes for the obvious eye finds itself biting a fin full of venomous spines.

The feelers are the interesting part. Three rays under each pectoral fin are free of the membrane, lengthened and packed with taste receptors, and the fish drags them across the sand as it moves, tasting the bottom ahead of itself. What it finds - small crustaceans, worms - it takes with a short strike. It is chemical searching rather than looking, which is why it works in the dark and on mud where nothing is visible.

By day it buries itself completely and is effectively unfindable.

Twenty centimeters (8 in), venomous, and one of the few members of the family that a diver meets away from the reef entirely - on the flat, at night, usually by accident.

## Also known as

- **English:** ocellated waspfish, Long-finned Waspfish, Longfin Waspfish
- **Arabic:** سمك الدبور ذو العيينات, سمكة الدبور طويل الزعانف, غدارة جؤجؤية
- **Portuguese:** Peixe-vespa-de-barbatana-longa
- **Czech:** ropušníček hřbetoskvrnný
- **Japanese:** ハチ, Hachi
- **Chinese:** 稜鬚簑鮋
- **Russian:** Чернопятнистый апистус
- **MSA:** Lepu
- **TH:** ปลากะรังหัวโขนหูดำ, ปลาแมงป่องครีบยาว

## Scientific synonyms

- *Apistus balnearum* Ogilby, 1910
- *Apistus carenatus* (Bloch & Schneider, 1801)
- *Apistus faurei* Gilchrist & Thompson, 1908
- *Apistus israelitarum* Cuvier, 1829
- *Hypodytes carinatus* (Bloch & Schneider, 1801)
- *Scorpaena carinata* Bloch & Schneider, 1801

## Range

Djibouti, Eritrea, Federal Republic of Somalia, Madagascar, Mozambique, Red Sea, South Africa

---

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