---
title: Blue Sandtilefish (Malacanthus latovittatus)
scientific_name: Malacanthus latovittatus
common_name: Blue Sandtilefish
taxon: Tilefishes
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-10-31T21:34:34.271Z
updated: 2026-08-23T20:24:16.021Z
tags: Blue Sandtilefish, Malacanthus latovittatus, Tilefishes, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/tilefishes/blue-sandtilefish
---

# Blue Sandtilefish (*Malacanthus latovittatus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Tilefishes (*Malacanthidae*)
- **Size:** up to 45 cm
- **Depth:** 5-65 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Open sand and rubble slopes beside reef
- **Reproduction:** Egg layer
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- long blue-gray body with a broad black stripe running from the eye to the tail
- swims well clear of the bottom in the open, unlike most sand fish
- juveniles black and white and much more slender
- up to 45 cm

It lives in the open on bare sand, which is the most exposed address on the site, and it does not hide.

Most sand-dwelling fish solve that problem by burying themselves, matching the sediment, or staying within a body length of a hole. This one is blue-gray with a broad black stripe from eye to tail, swims well clear of the bottom in plain view, and covers ground. Its defense is speed and distance: it sees a threat coming across open bottom long before the threat arrives, and it has a burrow it can reach.

Open sand is not empty. It is a habitat with its own specialists, and the reason it looks lifeless to a diver is that most of what lives there is either buried, hovering above a hole, or a long way off before you noticed it. The fish that work it in the open are few, and they are all fast.

This is the largest of them here at forty-five centimeters, usually in pairs on sand slopes beside reef, from about five meters down to sixty-five.

The juveniles look like a different species: black and white, much more slender, and often mistaken for something else entirely.

## Also known as

- **English:** blue blanquillo, Blue Tilefish, striped blanquillo
- **French:** Malacanthe bleu
- **Italian:** Pesce piastrella blu
- **German:** Blaukopf-Torpedobarsch
- **Portuguese:** Peixe-torpedo-índigo
- **Czech:** štíhlice modrá
- **Japanese:** キツネアマダイ, Kitsuneamadai
- **Chinese:** 側條弱棘魚, 軟棘魚, 黑帶軟棘魚
- **Russian:** Синий малакант
- **DA:** Blå teglfisk

## Scientific synonyms

- *Labrus latovittatus* Lacepède, 1801
- *Malacanthus taeniatus* Valenciennes, 1839
- *Malacanthus urichthys* Fowler, 1904
- *Oceanops latovittatus* (Lacepède, 1801)
- *Taenianotus latovittatus* (Lacepède, 1802)

## Range

Comoros, Federal Republic of Somalia, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Red Sea, Republic of Mauritius, Seychelles, South Africa

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/tilefishes/blue-sandtilefish)*
*Updated: August 23, 2026*