---
title: Sohal Surgeonfish (Acanthurus sohal)
scientific_name: Acanthurus sohal
common_name: Sohal Surgeonfish
taxon: Surgeonfishes
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2023-12-22T22:51:27.421Z
updated: 2026-09-03T21:21:24.318Z
tags: Sohal Surgeonfish, Acanthurus sohal, Surgeonfishes, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/surgeonfishes/sohal-surgeonfish
---

# Sohal Surgeonfish (*Acanthurus sohal*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Surgeonfishes (*Acanthuridae*)
- **Size:** 40 cm
- **Depth:** 1-20 m
- **Diet:** Herbivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Shallow reef tops and surge zone on the outer reef flat
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Dangerous
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- blue-black body ruled with fine horizontal white and olive lines
- orange patch behind the pectoral fin
- bright blue base to the tail, marking the blade
- in the top two meters of the reef edge, often chasing other fish

The signature fish of this sea: 40 cm (16 in) of blue-black body ruled with fine horizontal white and olive lines, a crescent tail edged in blue, and an orange patch running back from the pectoral fin toward a bright blue tail base.

That blue patch is a warning label. Inside it, on each side of the tail base, sits a hinged blade that folds into a groove and flicks out when the fish tenses - a scalpel of modified scale, sharp enough to cut skin and used sideways with a flick of the body. The whole family is named for it. A sohal will use it on other fish, on a hand, and on a camera dome.

It is a farmer with a temper. Each adult holds a patch of algae-covered reef top in the surge zone, grazes it, and drives off everything that tries to feed there - other surgeonfish, parrotfish, and divers who linger. Chasing a snorkeler out of a territory is routine behavior, not an anomaly, and it happens in the top two meters of water where these fish live.

The whole world population lives between this sea and the Persian Gulf and nowhere beyond it, which is a small enough range to make it a regional animal rather than an Indo-Pacific one, though not a Red Sea endemic in the strict sense.

Forsskal described it in 1775 from this coast, on the Danish expedition that killed him, and the name comes straight from Arabic. It is on the reef flat in front of nearly every hotel here.

## Also known as

- **English:** Red Sea surgeonfish, Sohal Surgeonfish, Sohal, Red Sea Clown Surgeon
- **Arabic:** Jarah almaliki, سحل سمكة, سوهال تانج
- **Hebrew:** בתרן סוהל
- **French:** Chirurgien zébré
- **Italian:** Pesce chirurgo arabo, Pesce chirurgo sohal, Pesce chirurgo zebrato
- **German:** Arabischer Doktorfisch
- **Spanish:** Pez Cirujano del Mar Rojo
- **Greek:** Ψάρι χειρούργος
- **Portuguese:** Cirurgião-de-Sohal
- **Dutch:** Rode Zee doktersvis, Rode Zee-doktersvis
- **Swedish:** Sohal kirurg
- **Polish:** Pokolec szary
- **Czech:** bodlok rudomořský
- **Russian:** Аравийская рыба-хирург
- **BG:** арабски хирург
- **CA:** Peix cirurgià de Sohal
- **DA:** Sohal-kirurgfisk
- **ET:** Araabia kirurgkala
- **FA:** جراحماهی سوهال
- **FI:** Linjavälskäri
- **HU:** Sohal doktorhal
- **LT:** Arabinis jūrų chirurgas

## Scientific synonyms

- *Acanthurus carinatus* Bloch & Schneider, 1801
- *Aspisurus sohar* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Chaetodon sohal* Forsskål, 1775
- *Chaetodon sohar* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Choetodon sohab* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Ctenodon ruppelii* (Swainson, 1839)

## Range

Djibouti, Eritrea, Federal Republic of Somalia, Red Sea

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/surgeonfishes/sohal-surgeonfish)*
*Updated: September 3, 2026*