---
title: Finless Sole (Pardachirus marmoratus)
scientific_name: Pardachirus marmoratus
common_name: Finless Sole
taxon: True soles
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-24T16:11:50.032Z
updated: 2026-08-17T11:14:32.719Z
tags: Finless Sole, Pardachirus marmoratus, True soles, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/true-soles/finless-sole
---

# Finless Sole (*Pardachirus marmoratus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** True soles (*Soleidae*)
- **Size:** up to 26 cm
- **Depth:** 1-15 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Cathemeral
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Shallow coastal sandy and muddy bottoms
- **Hazard:** Poisonous
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- oval flat body with no obvious pectoral fins
- both eyes on the right side of the head, small mouth at the front
- mottled brown, gray and cream, usually dusted with sand
- a row of pores along the bases of the dorsal and anal fins
- up to 26 cm

In the 1970s Eugenie Clark put one of these soles into a tank with sharks in this sea, and the sharks would not eat it. A shark that took the fish into its mouth let go at once, jaws locked open, and swam off shaking its head.

The cause is a milky secretion squeezed out of pores along the bases of the dorsal and anal fins. Its active component was named pardaxin after the genus, and it works on several fronts at once: it is bitter, it breaks up cell membranes, and it acts directly on the soft tissue of a predator's mouth and gills. It was investigated for years as a candidate shark repellent, and it remains one of very few substances a shark reliably refuses.

The rest of the animal is unremarkable in the best possible way. It is a small flatfish, mottled brown and cream, lying on sand in shallow water with a film of sediment over it, and it does not move.

The name has a story attached: Moses parting the sea and the fish with it, which is offered as the reason a sole has both eyes on one side. It is a good story and it is not why.

## Also known as

- **English:** finless sole, Red Sea Moses Sole, moses sole
- **Arabic:** سمك موسى البحر الأحمر, سمك موسى عديم الزعانف, سمك موسى المبقع
- **Hebrew:** סוליינית רעילה
- **French:** Sole de lait
- **Italian:** Sogliola di Mosè
- **German:** Moses-Seezunge
- **Spanish:** Lenguado de leche
- **Portuguese:** Língua de leite
- **Dutch:** Mozes Zeetong
- **Russian:** Мраморная павлинья солея
- **AF:** Gespikkelde tongvis
- **DA:** Marmoreret tunge
- **FI:** Mooseksenantura
- **SOM:** Sheer-sheerto
- **SW:** Gala-gala, Gayo-gayo, Wayo

## Scientific synonyms

- *Achirus barbatus* Lacepède, 1802
- *Achirus marmoratus* Lacepède, 1802
- *Achirus punctatus* Desjardins, 1837
- *Paradachirus marmoratus* (Lacepède, 1802)
- *Solea marmoratus* (Lacepède, 1802)

## Range

East Africa, Eritrea, 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/true-soles/finless-sole)*
*Updated: August 17, 2026*