---
title: Indian Triggerfish (Melichthys indicus)
scientific_name: Melichthys indicus
common_name: Indian Triggerfish
taxon: Triggerfishes
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-01-01T22:38:41.157Z
updated: 2026-08-31T20:15:56.210Z
tags: Indian Triggerfish, Melichthys indicus, Triggerfishes, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/triggerfishes/indian-triggerfish
---

# Indian Triggerfish (*Melichthys indicus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Triggerfishes (*Balistidae*)
- **Size:** 25 cm
- **Depth:** 5-53 m
- **Diet:** Herbivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Outer reef slopes and drop-offs with current
- **Reproduction:** Egg layer
- **Hazard:** Dangerous
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- dark brown to black body with black fins
- thin white line along the base of the dorsal and anal fins
- pale line at the base of the tail in some individuals
- hangs in open water off a slope rather than sitting on the reef
- up to 25 cm

Most triggerfish work the bottom. This one hangs off it, in open water above a slope or a drop-off where the current runs, taking plankton and drifting algae out of the flow and dropping back to the reef only when something comes at it.

That is a different living from its relatives, and the body shows it: smoother and more streamlined than the bottom-working triggerfishes, built to hold station in moving water rather than to lever stones about. Dark brown to black, with a thin white line running along the base of the dorsal and anal fins that is the easiest mark to catch underwater.

It has not given up the family jaw, though. It still takes hard-shelled animals off the bottom when it feels like it, molluscs and urchins included, so the equipment is kept in reserve rather than discarded.

Randall and Klausewitz described the species in 1973. In the aquarium trade it is regularly sold or reported as the black durgon of the Pacific, which it closely resembles and has never met: this fish has not been recorded anywhere near Hawaii.

The danger flag here is nest defense, as it is for every triggerfish. A fish that turns to face you head on with its first spine raised is telling you there are eggs below, and the answer is the same in every case: leave sideways and low, not upward.

## Also known as

- **English:** Indian triggerfish, Indian Black Triggerfish, Black triggerfish
- **Arabic:** Himarah al bahar al hindiah, Gerboban
- **French:** Baliste à nageoires noires, Baliste indien
- **Italian:** Pesce balestra indiano
- **German:** Indischer Drückerfisch
- **Spanish:** Ballesta Negra Indica
- **Portuguese:** Porco cangulo
- **Czech:** ostenec indický
- **Japanese:** Indo-yo-mongara
- **Russian:** Индийский спинорог
- **AF:** Indiese snellervis
- **CA:** Ballesta negra índia
- **DA:** Indisk aftrækkerfisk
- **DIV:** Kalhu rondu
- **ET:** India ogaturi
- **GL:** Peixe porco negro indio

## Scientific synonyms

- *Melichtys indicus* Randall & Klausewitz, 1973

## Range

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

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/triggerfishes/indian-triggerfish)*
*Updated: August 31, 2026*