---
title: Longjawed Squirrelfish (Sargocentron spiniferum)
scientific_name: Sargocentron spiniferum
common_name: Longjawed Squirrelfish
taxon: Squirrelfishes
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-10-27T13:05:20.344Z
updated: 2026-08-12T09:16:18.443Z
tags: Longjawed Squirrelfish, Sargocentron spiniferum, Squirrelfishes, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/squirrelfishes/longjawed-squirrelfish
---

# Longjawed Squirrelfish (*Sargocentron spiniferum*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Squirrelfishes (*Holocentrinae*)
- **Size:** up to 51 cm
- **Depth:** 1-120 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Caves and overhangs by day, sand and rubble at night
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Poisonous
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- deep red body with a large maroon patch behind the eye and pale stripes along the scales
- very large eye, taking up much of the head
- long sharp spine on the rear edge of the cheek
- length up to 51 cm

The largest squirrelfish in the sea, up to 51 cm (20 in), deep red with a maroon patch behind an eye that takes up a third of the head. By day it hangs under ledges and in caves, facing out, and it is one of the fish a torch beam finds looking straight back.

The eye is the whole design. Squirrelfishes feed at night on crustaceans and small fish taken off open sand, and the retina is built for it: dense in rods, backed by a reflective layer that gives light a second pass and makes the eyes glow in a torch beam. Red pigment is the other half of the trick, because red light is the first to disappear with depth and a red fish at night is a black fish.

The cheek carries a weapon. A long spine on the rear edge of the gill cover stands out sideways and is sharp enough to cut a hand that reaches into a hole - the reason for the family's other name, soldierfish, and for the care fishermen take handling them.

They are noisy. Squirrelfishes grunt and click by vibrating the swim bladder with specialized muscles, and a cave full of them at dusk is audible to a diver hanging outside it.

## Also known as

- **English:** sabre squirrelfish, Giant Squirrelfish, Long-jawed Squirrelfish
- **French:** Grand Ecureuil de Mer, Écureuil à Grandes Mâchoires, Cardinal lancette
- **Spanish:** Candil Sable
- **Japanese:** トガリエビス, Togariebisu
- **Chinese:** 尖吻棘鱗魚, 尖吻棘鳞鱼, 瀾公妾
- **TAH:** 'apa'i

## Scientific synonyms

- *Adioryx spinifer* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Holocentrum binotatum* Quoy & Gaimard, 1834
- *Holocentrum leo* Cuvier, 1829
- *Holocentrum melanopterus* Bleeker, 1855
- *Holocentrum spiniferum* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Holocentrum unipunctatum* Günther, 1874
- *Holocentrus bowiei* Jordan & Snyder, 1905
- *Holocentrus spinifer* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Holocentrus spiniferus* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Holocentrus verticalis* Seale, 1906
- *Holocentrus xanthurus* Fowler, 1944
- *Perca spinifer* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Sargocentron spinifer* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Sciaena spinifera* Forsskål, 1775

## Range

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

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/squirrelfishes/longjawed-squirrelfish)*
*Updated: August 12, 2026*