---
title: Crimson Triplefin (Enneapterygius qirmiz)
scientific_name: Enneapterygius qirmiz
common_name: Crimson Triplefin
taxon: Threefin blenny
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-15T20:55:48.466Z
updated: 2026-08-20T16:17:04.193Z
tags: Crimson Triplefin, Enneapterygius qirmiz, Threefin blenny, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/threefin-blenny/crimson-triplefin
---

# Crimson Triplefin (*Enneapterygius qirmiz*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Threefin blenny (*Tripterygiidae*)
- **Size:** up to 1.7 cm
- **Depth:** 0-9 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Shallow reef and rubble, in the top few meters
- **Reproduction:** Egg layer
- **Endemic:** Endemic to the Red Sea
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- brilliant red, and under two centimeters long
- three separate dorsal fins
- males redder and darker than females
- up to 1.7 cm

Seventeen millimeters of bright red fish, and the name says so in Arabic: qirmiz is crimson, the same root that gave English the word kermes and, by a long route, crimson itself.

Naming a Red Sea fish in Arabic rather than Latin or Greek is a small courtesy and a rare one. Most species here carry names built from classical roots or from the surnames of European collectors, and a name taken from the language actually spoken on the coast where the animal lives stands out.

The fish is small enough to be a genuine problem to photograph and it lives in the top nine meters, on rubble and rock, where it perches in the open and is passed over as a speck of color. Red is a useful thing to be at that size: below a few meters there is no red light left to reflect, so a red animal reads as black, and a black speck on dark rock is not worth a predator's attention.

The three separate dorsal fins are the family mark, and on an animal this size they take a macro lens to see at all.

## Also known as

- **English:** Crimson Triplefin

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/threefin-blenny/crimson-triplefin)*
*Updated: August 20, 2026*