---
title: Twinspot Snapper (Lutjanus bohar)
scientific_name: Lutjanus bohar
common_name: Twinspot Snapper
taxon: Snappers
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-12T21:21:19.132Z
updated: 2026-08-17T14:13:19.048Z
tags: Twinspot Snapper, Lutjanus bohar, Snappers, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/snappers/twinspot-snapper
---

# Twinspot Snapper (*Lutjanus bohar*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Snappers (*Lutjanidae*)
- **Size:** up to 90 cm
- **Weight:** 12.5 Kg
- **Depth:** 4-180 m
- **Max age:** 56 years
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Outer reef slopes, drop-offs and sand, often around wrecks
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner
- **Hazard:** Poisonous
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- heavy red to reddish-brown body with a steep rounded forehead
- a groove running from the nostril to the eye
- two silvery white spots below the dorsal fin in juveniles and some adults
- follows divers at close range without hurrying
- up to 90 cm

The bohar snapper is one of the fish most reliably associated with ciguatera, and the reason is that it is large, old, and at the top of a long chain.

The toxins are made by a dinoflagellate that grows on dead coral and algae. Grazing fish eat it, larger fish eat them, and the toxin concentrates at every step without ever being broken down. A big bohar has been accumulating it for decades. Cooking, freezing, smoking and gutting do nothing to it, there is no test that can be run on a boat, and across much of the Pacific this species is simply not eaten above a certain size.

That size takes a long time to reach. The species matures at eight or nine years old and the oldest recorded individual was fifty-six, which makes a large one older than most of the divers looking at it.

Adults are heavy, blunt-headed and red, and they follow divers. Juveniles do something different: small and brownish, they mix into schools of Chromis damselfish and travel with them, using the company as cover to get close enough to take one.

The two white spots the name refers to are on juveniles and some adults. The biggest fish lose them entirely.

## Also known as

- **English:** twinspot snapper, Kelp Sea Perch, two-spot red snapper
- **Arabic:** Hamrah
- **Hebrew:** לוטיין נחושתי
- **French:** Lutjan Rouge à Deux Taches, Vivaneau Chien Rouge, Lutjan rouge
- **Italian:** Azzannatore rosso
- **German:** Doppelfleck-Schnapper
- **Spanish:** Pargo de Dos Manchas
- **Portuguese:** Caranha-dominó
- **Polish:** lucjan dwuplamy
- **Czech:** chňapal bohar
- **Japanese:** バラフエダイ, Barafuedai
- **Chinese:** 海豚哥, 白斑笛鯛, 白斑笛鲷
- **Russian:** Луциан-бохар
- **DA:** Dobbeltplettet snapper
- **TAH:** ha'amea
- **TH:** ปลากะพงแดงปานขาว, ปลากะพงแดงเขี้ยว

## Scientific synonyms

- *Diacope labuan* Montrouzier, 1857
- *Diacope quadriguttata* Cuvier, 1828
- *Lutianus bobar* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Lutianus bohar* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Lutianus nukuhivae* Seale, 1906
- *Lutjanus coatesi* Whitley, 1934
- *Lutjanus rangus* (Cuvier, 1828)
- *Mesoprion rangus* Cuvier, 1828
- *Mesoprion rubens* MacLeay, 1882
- *Sciaena bohar* Forsskål, 1775
- *Sparus cynodon* Bloch, 1791
- *Sparus lepisurus* Lacepède, 1802

## 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/twinspot-snapper)*
*Updated: August 17, 2026*