---
title: Humpback Snapper (Lutjanus gibbus)
scientific_name: Lutjanus gibbus
common_name: Humpback Snapper
taxon: Snappers
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-12T21:56:00.925Z
updated: 2026-08-13T20:52:45.421Z
tags: Humpback Snapper, Lutjanus gibbus, Snappers, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/snappers/humpback-snapper
---

# Humpback Snapper (*Lutjanus gibbus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Snappers (*Lutjanidae*)
- **Size:** up to 57 cm
- **Weight:** 2.8 Kg
- **Depth:** 1-150 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Coral-rich reef, in stationary daytime schools
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Poisonous
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- steep humped forehead and a deeply forked tail with long lobes
- adults dull red-gray, fins often bright red
- juveniles yellow above and white below with a black tail stripe
- hundreds of fish stacked motionless over one coral head by day
- length up to 57 cm

The snapper that stacks. Hundreds of fish pack into a slow, hovering mass over a single coral head, all facing the same way, and stay there through the day doing absolutely nothing. Come back at dusk and the mass is gone.

The humped forehead and the long-lobed forked tail identify it, though the color is unreliable - the same fish can look dull gray, deep red or almost silver depending on light and mood, and the fins turn bright red when it is excited.

Juveniles look nothing like that. They are yellow above and white below with a dark stripe on the tail, which makes them near-copies of the goatfish they hang around with. Sheltering inside a school of another species is a good trick if you can pass for one of its members.

At night the school disperses over sand and seagrass to hunt crabs, shrimps and small fish, and the same fish return to the same coral head at first light. It is one of the species most often implicated in ciguatera poisoning across the Indo-Pacific, which is what the flag means here.

## Also known as

- **English:** humpback snapper, Humpback Red Snapper, Humpbacked Red Snapper
- **Arabic:** Hamrah
- **French:** Lutjan queue en pagaie, Bord de Mare, Queue en Pagaie
- **Italian:** Lutianide rosso gobbo
- **German:** Buckel-Schnapper
- **Spanish:** Pargo jorobado rojo, Pargo Jorobado
- **Portuguese:** Caranha-jubarte
- **Dutch:** Rode bultrugsnapper
- **Polish:** Lucjan trujacy
- **Czech:** chňapal klenutý
- **Japanese:** ヒメフエダイ, Himefuedai
- **Chinese:** 海豚哥, 紅雞仔, 紅雞魚
- **Russian:** Горбатый луциан, Кочинский луциан
- **DA:** Rød pukkelsnapper
- **TH:** ปลากะพงแดงหางมน

## Scientific synonyms

- *Anthias heraldi* Schultz, 1953
- *Diacope axillaris* Valenciennes, 1830
- *Diacope borensis* Cuvier, 1828
- *Diacope coccinea* Cuvier, 1828
- *Diacope lineata* Quoy & Gaimard, 1824
- *Diacope melanura* Rüppell, 1838
- *Diacope rosea* Valenciennes, 1830
- *Diacope striata* Cuvier, 1828
- *Diacope tiea* Lesson, 1831
- *Genyoroge bidens* MacLeay, 1882
- *Lutianus gibbus* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Lutianus tahitiensis* Seale, 1906
- *Lutjanus coccineus* (Cuvier, 1828)
- *Lutjanus comoriensis* Fourmanoir, 1957
- *Mesoprion janthinurus* Bleeker, 1854
- *Sciaena gibba* Forsskål, 1775

## Range

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

---

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