---
title: Blue-striped Snapper (Lutjanus kasmira)
scientific_name: Lutjanus kasmira
common_name: Blue-striped Snapper
taxon: Snappers
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2023-12-29T08:28:28.409Z
updated: 2026-08-12T12:37:16.412Z
tags: Blue-striped Snapper, Lutjanus kasmira, Snappers, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/snappers/blue-striped-snapper
---

# Blue-striped Snapper (*Lutjanus kasmira*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Snappers (*Lutjanidae*)
- **Size:** up to 40 cm
- **Depth:** 3-265 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Reef and wrecks, in stationary schools by day
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- bright yellow fish with four horizontal blue stripes edged in black
- pale belly, sometimes with faint gray lines below the blue ones
- hangs in a motionless school beside a coral head or a wreck all day
- length up to 40 cm

Yellow, with four blue stripes edged in black, hanging in a school that does not appear to be doing anything. Those standing schools beside a coral head or a wreck are the fish's daytime state, and they can hold the same position for years.

The work happens after dark. The school breaks up at dusk and the fish spread onto sand and seagrass to hunt small fish and crustaceans, returning to the same structure before dawn - so a snapper school is not a feeding aggregation but a dormitory with a view.

That habit made it a case study in what not to do. Hawaii introduced this species in the 1950s to build a fishery; the fish spread across the whole archipelago, the fishery never materialized because nobody wanted to eat it, and it now competes with native species on reefs that never had it. It is the standard example of a well-intentioned marine introduction going wrong.

Here it belongs, and a good school is one of the easier photographs on the reef: the fish tolerate a slow approach and reform behind a diver who passes through them.

## Also known as

- **English:** common bluestripe snapper, Yellow and Blue Seaperch, Blue-banded Sea Perch
- **French:** Lutjan à quatre bandes bleues, Perche à raies bleues, Vivaneau à raies bleues
- **Italian:** Azzannatore striato
- **German:** Blaustreifen-Schnapper, Blaustreifenschnapper, Kaschmirschnapper
- **Spanish:** Pargo común de rayas azules, Pargo de Rayas Azules
- **Portuguese:** Caranha-de-linhas-azuis
- **Dutch:** Blauwgestreepte Snapper
- **Polish:** lucjan kaszmirowy
- **Czech:** chňapal modropruhý
- **Japanese:** ヨスジフエダイ, Yosujifuedai
- **Chinese:** 四帶笛鯛, 四帶笛鳚, 四線
- **Russian:** Кашмирский луциан
- **DA:** Blåbåndet snapper
- **TAH:** ta'ape
- **TH:** ปลากะพงลายสี่แถบ

## Scientific synonyms

- *Lutianus kasmira* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Mesoprion etaape* Lesson, 1831
- *Perca lineata* Gronow, 1854
- *Sciaena kasmira* Forsskål, 1775

## Range

Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Federal Republic of Somalia, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, New Zealand, Red Sea, Republic of Mauritius, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/snappers/blue-striped-snapper)*
*Updated: August 12, 2026*