---
title: Redtooth Triggerfish (Odonus niger)
scientific_name: Odonus niger
common_name: Redtooth Triggerfish
taxon: Triggerfishes
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-01-01T21:57:51.547Z
updated: 2026-08-31T20:15:56.198Z
tags: Redtooth Triggerfish, Odonus niger, Triggerfishes, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/triggerfishes/redtooth-triggerfish
---

# Redtooth Triggerfish (*Odonus niger*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Triggerfishes (*Balistidae*)
- **Size:** up to 50 cm
- **Depth:** 5-110 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Current-swept drop-offs, in loose feeding clouds
- **Reproduction:** Egg layer, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Dangerous
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- deep blue-purple body with a pale line across the head
- long trailing tips on both lobes of the tail
- red teeth, visible at a meter
- hangs in loose clouds of dozens, all facing into the current
- up to 50 cm

This is the triggerfish that gave up the family trade. Instead of crushing shells it picks plankton out of moving water, which is why you only ever find it where the current runs - a loose cloud of blue-purple fish off a wall, all facing the same way, feeding on nothing a diver can see.

The teeth stayed red. Bright red against a blue face and visible from a meter away, they are a leftover from an ancestry of hard-shelled food, kept by an animal that now eats copepods. Nothing on its menu requires them.

It kept the family's other invention too. The first dorsal spine locks upright and is held there by a second small spine behind it, like a latch, so a fish wedged into a crevice cannot be pulled out until it releases the lock itself. Every triggerfish sleeps that way, and this one bolts into a hole and locks in at the first sign of trouble.

Rueppell described it from this sea in 1836 and called it niger, black - which fits a specimen in a jar of alcohol far better than it fits the living fish, deep blue-purple with a pale line across the head and long trailing tips on the tail.

Unlike its titan and yellowmargin relatives it is no trouble to divers: no crater on open sand to defend, and no interest in anything larger than a copepod.

## Also known as

- **English:** red-toothed triggerfish, Redtooth Triggerfish, Red Toothed Triggerfish
- **Arabic:** Himarah hamra'a sin, Karkamba, Shuroma
- **Hebrew:** פיחון אדום-שן
- **French:** Baliste dents rouges, Baliste bleu
- **Italian:** pesce balestra denti rossi
- **German:** Rotzahn-Drückerfisch
- **Spanish:** Ballesta Azul, Pejepuerco dentirojo
- **Portuguese:** Porco dentes vermelhos
- **Dutch:** Roodtand Trekkersvis, Roodtandtrekkervis
- **Swedish:** Blå tryckare
- **Polish:** Balista czerwonozęba
- **Czech:** Ostenec černý
- **Japanese:** アカモンガラ, Akamongara
- **Chinese:** 紅牙板機魨, 紅牙鱗魨, 魔鬼砲彈
- **Russian:** Краснозубый спинорог
- **AF:** Rooitand-snellervis
- **CA:** ballesta de dents roges, Ballesta blava
- **DA:** Rødtandet aftrækkerfisk
- **DIV:** Vaalan rondu, ވާލަން ރޮނޑު
- **ET:** Must odoon, Punakihv-odoon
- **FI:** Sinisäppikala
- **GL:** Peixe porco azul
- **LT:** Raudondantės raguotės
- **MAH:** Bub mej, Bub
- **MAL:** ചോപ്പു പല്ലന്, വാലന് കരട്ടി, വാളന് കരട്ടി
- **MSA:** Jebong wau bulan, Ayam laut, Triger biru
- **SIN:** Kalu pothypora, Valla
- **SMO:** Sumu-pe'a
- **SOM:** Kiin-koy
- **SW:** Kikande, Tundu, Vidui
- **TAH:** 'o'iri ave
- **TAM:** Karuppu-klathi
- **TH:** ปลาวัวดำ
- **VI:** Cá bò răng đỏ

## Scientific synonyms

- *Balistes erythrodon* Günther, 1870
- *Odonus erythrodon* (Günther, 1870)
- *Xenodon niger* Rüppell, 1836

## Range

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

---

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