---
title: Mangrove Snapper (Lutjanus argentimaculatus)
scientific_name: Lutjanus argentimaculatus
common_name: Mangrove Snapper
taxon: Snappers
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-12T21:05:07.843Z
updated: 2026-08-13T20:30:23.817Z
tags: Mangrove Snapper, Lutjanus argentimaculatus, Snappers, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/snappers/mangrove-snapper
---

# Mangrove Snapper (*Lutjanus argentimaculatus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Snappers (*Lutjanidae*)
- **Size:** up to 150 cm
- **Weight:** 8.7 Kg
- **Depth:** 1-120 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Reef and wrecks as an adult, mangroves and rivers as a juvenile
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Poisonous
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- heavy copper-red to maroon body, darker on the back
- steep forehead and a large mouth with obvious canines
- juveniles with pale bars and a blue line under the eye
- usually alone under a ledge or a wreck, unhurried
- length up to 150 cm

The biggest snapper in these waters, a meter and a half (5 ft) of copper-red fish with a heavy head and visible canines, sitting under a ledge or inside a wreck and watching a diver without moving.

Its life runs backwards from where you find it. Adults live on the reef, but the young grow up in mangrove creeks and estuaries, and they push far up rivers - hundreds of kilometers inland in some catchments, into water that is entirely fresh. They spend years there before dropping back down to the sea, which makes this reef fish dependent on a habitat most reef fish never see.

That dependency is not academic. Where mangroves are cleared, the adult population on the neighboring reef falls years later, and the connection was invisible until somebody tagged the fish.

It hunts at night, taking fish and large crustaceans, and it is one of the few reef fish big enough to be interested in an octopus. Old, heavy individuals from some regions carry ciguatoxins - the flag on this card is about the table, not the reef.

## Also known as

- **English:** mangrove red snapper, Indo-Pacific Mangrove Red Snapper, river snapper
- **Arabic:** نهاش المنغروف الأحمر, نهاش رمادي, Hamrah
- **French:** Vieille de palétuviers, Vivaneau des mangroves, Carpe
- **German:** Kupfer-Schnapper
- **Spanish:** Pargo de Manglar del Indo Pacífico, pargo rojo del manglar, Pargo Rabo Amarillo
- **Portuguese:** Caranha-de-mangue-do-Indo-Pacífico
- **Czech:** chňapal stříbroskvrnný
- **Japanese:** ゴマフエダイ, Gomafuedai
- **Chinese:** 紅棗魚, 紅槽, 紫紅笛鯛
- **Russian:** Красный луциан
- **FI:** mangrovenapsija
- **KO:** 붉은퉁돔
- **TH:** ปลากะพงแดงปากแม่น้ำ, ปลากะพงแดงป่าชายเลน

## Scientific synonyms

- *Alphestes gembra* Bloch & Schneider, 1801
- *Alphestes sambra* Bloch & Schneider, 1801
- *Diacope superba* Castelnau, 1878
- *Diacope superbus* Castelnau, 1878
- *Diacopus superbus* Castelnau, 1878
- *Lutianus argentimaculatus* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Lutianus jahngarah* Day, 1875
- *Lutianus salmonoides* Gilchrist & Thompson, 1908
- *Lutjanus argentimculatus* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Mesoprion flavipinnis* Cuvier, 1828
- *Mesoprion garretti* Günther, 1873
- *Mesoprion griseoides* Guichenot, 1863
- *Mesoprion obscurus* MacLeay, 1881
- *Mesoprion olivaceus* Cuvier, 1828
- *Mesoprion roseigaster* MacLeay, 1881
- *Mesoprion sexfasciatus* MacLeay, 1883
- *Mesoprion taeniops* Valenciennes, 1830
- *Perca argentata* Bloch & Schneider, 1801
- *Sciaena argentata* Gmelin, 1789
- *Sciaena argentimaculata* Forsskål, 1775

## Range

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

---

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