---
title: Lined Bristletooth (Ctenochaetus striatus)
scientific_name: Ctenochaetus striatus
common_name: Lined Bristletooth
taxon: Surgeonfishes
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-01T11:46:30.305Z
updated: 2026-09-11T20:08:58.797Z
tags: Lined Bristletooth, Ctenochaetus striatus, Surgeonfishes, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/surgeonfishes/lined-bristletooth
---

# Lined Bristletooth (*Ctenochaetus striatus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Surgeonfishes (*Acanthuridae*)
- **Size:** up to 26 cm
- **Depth:** 0-60 m
- **Diet:** Detritivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Habitat:** Reef flats, lagoons and seaward reef, over rock and rubble
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Poisonous
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- dark olive to yellow-brown body ruled with fine blue lines running lengthwise
- numerous small orange-yellow spots over the nape and upper head
- teeth are fine movable bristles, not the fixed cutting row of other surgeonfishes
- leaves no visible bite marks where it has fed
- up to 26 cm

This fish does not crop algae. It brushes.

Where a surgeonfish bites turf off the rock with a fixed row of cutting teeth, this one carries long flexible bristles, movable in the jaw, and sweeps them across hard surfaces to lift off the surface film - the layer of blue-green algae, diatoms, sediment and detritus that coats everything on a reef. Nothing is cut, so it leaves no bite marks at all, and it can work surfaces that are too hard, too flat or too thinly covered for a cropping fish to bother with.

That is also why it is the classic ciguatera fish. The dinoflagellates that produce ciguatoxin live in exactly that film, so an animal whose entire living is sweeping it up concentrates them, and everything that eats this fish concentrates them further. FishBase carries the poisoning reports for the species, and in the Pacific it is one of the most frequently implicated.

On the reef it is dark olive to yellow-brown, ruled with fine blue lines along the body, with a scatter of small orange-yellow spots over the nape and upper head. It works reef flats, lagoons and seaward reef from the surface to 60 m, singly or in groups, and it is one of the most numerous fish on any reef top here.

Like the rest of the family it carries a blade at the base of the tail, and like the rest of the family it will use it.

## Also known as

- **English:** lined bristletooth, Striped Bristletooth, striated surgeonfish
- **Arabic:** Juneh
- **Hebrew:** פגיונון חום
- **French:** Chirurgien Noir, Chirurgien strié
- **Italian:** Pesce chirurgo striato
- **German:** Brauner Borstenzahn-Doktorfisch, Gestreifter Borstenzahn-Doktorfisch, Längsstreifen-Borstenzahndoktor
- **Spanish:** Pez Cirujano Estriado, Cirujano Estriado
- **Portuguese:** Barbeiro Estriado, Cirurgião-estriado
- **Czech:** bodlok žíhaný
- **Japanese:** サザナミハギ, Sazanamihagi
- **Chinese:** 漣紋櫛齒刺尾鯛
- **Russian:** Полосатый ктенохет
- **AF:** Gestreepte borseltand
- **BIS:** blakpiko
- **CA:** Peix cirurgià marró
- **DA:** Stribet Kirurgfisk
- **FIJ:** Balagi, dridri
- **MAH:** Tiebere
- **MSA:** Debam, Dengkis
- **SMO:** Pala'ia
- **SOM:** Kaxan
- **SW:** Kangaja, Pono
- **TAH:** maito
- **TGL:** Labahita, Surahan

## Scientific synonyms

- *Acanthurus argenteus* Quoy & Gaimard, 1825
- *Acanthurus ctenodon* Valenciennes, 1835
- *Acanthurus flavoguttatus* Kittlitz, 1834
- *Acanthurus ketlitzii* Valenciennes, 1835
- *Acanthurus kettlitzii* Valenciennes, 1835
- *Acanthurus striatus* Quoy & Gaimard, 1825
- *Acronurus argenteus* (Quoy & Gaimard, 1825)
- *Ctenodon ctenodon* (Valenciennes, 1835)
- *Ctenodon cuvierii* Swainson, 1839

## Range

Federal Republic of Somalia, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Mozambique, Red Sea, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/surgeonfishes/lined-bristletooth)*
*Updated: September 11, 2026*