---
title: Vanikoro Sweeper (Pempheris vanicolensis)
scientific_name: Pempheris vanicolensis
common_name: Vanikoro Sweeper
taxon: Sweepers
published: 2026-08-11T09:21:55.201Z
updated: 2026-08-11T09:58:45.383Z
tags: Vanikoro Sweeper, Pempheris vanicolensis, Sweepers, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/sweepers/vanikoro-sweeper
---

# Vanikoro Sweeper (*Pempheris vanicolensis*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Sweepers (*Pempheridae*)
- **Size:** up to 20 cm
- **Depth:** 3-40 m
- **Diet:** Planktivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Caves, overhangs and wrecks by day, open reef at night
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric

## How to recognise it

- deep body sloping steeply from a large eye to a narrow tail
- coppery bronze with a black edge on the anal fin
- packs a cave in a slow, tightly spaced shoal
- length up to 20 cm

A copper-bronze fish shaped like a wedge, deep at the head and tapering to a narrow tail, with an eye far too large for daylight. Whole caves fill with them, hanging in a slow shoal that opens and closes around a diver without ever quite breaking, and the black-edged anal fin flickers as they turn.

The eye explains the schedule. Sweepers spend the day packed into overhangs, wrecks and cave mouths, and spill out after dark to feed on zooplankton in open water, returning before dawn. A wreck that looks empty at noon can be solid with them in the beam of a night dive.

They are also one of the fish a diver hears before seeing. Members of this family make sound with the swim bladder and can produce audible clicks and drumming inside a cave, a wall of small noises from an animal most people never notice making any.

## Also known as

- **English:** Greenback Bullseye, Vanikolo sweeper, Vanikoro sweeper
- **Hebrew:** גרזינון הכוכים, גרזינון כוכים
- **French:** Hachette à bordures noires, Poisson-hachette
- **Greek:** Σαρωτής
- **Turkish:** ucgen baligi, yaprak balik, Üçgen Balığı
- **Portuguese:** Papudinha-cobre
- **Dutch:** Rodezeebijlvis
- **Czech:** metařík jeskynní
- **Japanese:** キビレハタンポ, Kibirehatampo
- **Chinese:** 三角仔, 刀片, 水果刀
- **Russian:** Ваникорский подметальщик
- **FI:** mustasaumapyyhältäjä
- **FIJ:** tina
- **TH:** ปลากระดี่ทะเลครีบดำ

## Range

East Africa, Greece, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Mediterranean Sea - Eastern Basin, Red Sea

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/sweepers/vanikoro-sweeper)*
*Updated: August 11, 2026*