---
title: Fusilier Snapper (Paracaesio sordida)
scientific_name: Paracaesio sordida
common_name: Fusilier Snapper
taxon: Snappers
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-12T20:53:33.334Z
updated: 2026-09-11T20:13:23.243Z
tags: Fusilier Snapper, Paracaesio sordida, Snappers, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/snappers/fusilier-snapper
---

# Fusilier Snapper (*Paracaesio sordida*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Snappers (*Lutjanidae*)
- **Size:** up to 48 cm
- **Depth:** 5-100 m
- **Diet:** Planktivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Habitat:** Midwater along deep reef slopes and drop-offs
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- reddish dorsal and tail fins on an otherwise plain gray-brown body
- slimmer and smaller-scaled than the reef snappers
- in midwater off a deep slope rather than over the coral
- up to 48 cm

The name says what happened to it. Paracaesio means beside Caesio, which is the fusilier genus - and that is exactly what this animal is: a snapper that gave up the family trade and took up the fusiliers' living instead.

The rest of the snappers here hang beside structure by day and hunt fish and crustaceans off the bottom after dark. This one feeds on plankton in open water, in big schools along deep reef slopes, and the body has followed: slimmer than a reef snapper, smaller-scaled, without the heavy head and obvious canines the family is built around.

It also lives deeper than the rest of them. Records run to 200 m, and although the band where the fish actually is runs from about 5 to 100, most of that is below where a diver goes - so on this coast it is a fish of the wall, seen as a cloud well out from the reef rather than as an animal beside it.

What identifies it is the fins. The body is a plain gray-brown that says nothing, and the dorsal and the tail are reddish.

## Also known as

- **English:** Dirty Ordure Snapper, Dusky snapper, Fusilier Snapper
- **French:** Vivanette Bleu, Vivanette bleue
- **Spanish:** Panchote Azul
- **Japanese:** ヨゴレアオダイ, Yogoreaodai

## Scientific synonyms

- *Paracaesio soldidus* Abe & Shinohara, 1962
- *Paracaesio sordidus* Abe & Shinohara, 1962

## Range

Indian Ocean, South Africa

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/snappers/fusilier-snapper)*
*Updated: September 11, 2026*