---
title: Bluelined Surgeonfish (Acanthurus mata)
scientific_name: Acanthurus mata
common_name: Bluelined Surgeonfish
taxon: Surgeonfishes
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-01T10:43:41.523Z
updated: 2026-08-13T21:24:54.631Z
tags: Bluelined Surgeonfish, Acanthurus mata, Surgeonfishes, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/surgeonfishes/bluelined-surgeonfish
---

# Bluelined Surgeonfish (*Acanthurus mata*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Surgeonfishes (*Acanthuridae*)
- **Size:** up to 50 cm
- **Depth:** 5-100 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Deeper slopes and drop-offs, in open water
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Dangerous
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- blue-gray body with fine wavy blue lines along the flank
- yellow patch behind the eye
- single folding blade in a socket on each side of the tail base
- in loose midwater groups off the slope
- length up to 50 cm

A large blue-gray surgeonfish with fine wavy lines, hanging in open water off a slope rather than grazing on it. Fifty centimeters (20 in), and the one surgeonfish here that mostly eats animals - it takes zooplankton from midwater, which is why the groups are always up off the bottom and facing into the flow.

It changes shade in seconds. A fish that has been feeding calmly in pale blue-gray goes almost black when it is chased or when it moves down onto the reef, and back again - a genuine, rapid switch rather than a trick of the light.

Like every surgeonfish it carries a folding scalpel on each side of the tail base, lying in a socket and swung out by flexing the tail. Divers do not get cut. People handling fish do, and the wounds are deep and slow to heal.

It is a schooling fish that thins out where it is speared, and on unfished reefs the groups can be large.

## Also known as

- **English:** blue-lined surgeonfish, Elongate Surgeonfish, Bleeker's Surgeonfish
- **Arabic:** Anfoos, Fardh, Faridh
- **French:** Poisson Docteur à Queue Blanche, Grand Picot de Récif, Chirurgien pâle
- **Italian:** Pesce chirurgo a strisce blu, Pesce chirurgo rigato di blu, Pesce chirurgo maschera gialla
- **German:** Grauer Doktorfisch
- **Spanish:** Pez Cirujano Alargado
- **Portuguese:** Cirurgião de Bleeker, Cirurgião Comprido, Cirurgião-alongado
- **Czech:** bodlok žlutočelý
- **Japanese:** ヒラニザ, Hiraniza, Osuji-kurohagi
- **Chinese:** 後刺尾鯛
- **AF:** Lang doktervis
- **CA:** Peix cirurgià blau ratllat
- **DA:** Aflang Kirurgfisk
- **FIJ:** Balagi nawa, Balagi, dridri
- **MAH:** Bekiru
- **MAL:** പല, പാള, Pala
- **MSA:** Buntana, Debam, Dengkis
- **SW:** Kangaja
- **TAH:** para'i oturi, Para'I
- **TGL:** Dabahita, Labahita, Samarel
- **TH:** ปลาขี้ตังเบ็ดหน้าเหลือง

## Scientific synonyms

- *Acanthurus aurolineatus* Day, 1876
- *Acanthurus bleekeri* Günther, 1861
- *Acanthurus weberi* Ahl, 1923
- *Chaetodon mata* Cuvier, 1829
- *Chaetodon meta* Cuvier, 1829
- *Hepatus weberi* Ahl, 1923

## Range

Federal Republic of Somalia, Kenya, Mozambique, Seychelles, South Africa

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