---
title: Lined Unicornfish (Naso brevirostris)
scientific_name: Naso brevirostris
common_name: Lined Unicornfish
taxon: Unicornfishes
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-01T12:51:04.366Z
updated: 2026-08-13T21:24:54.615Z
tags: Lined Unicornfish, Naso brevirostris, Unicornfishes, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/unicornfishes/lined-unicornfish
---

# Lined Unicornfish (*Naso brevirostris*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Unicornfishes (*Nasinae*)
- **Size:** up to 60 cm
- **Depth:** 1-120 m
- **Diet:** Herbivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Reef slopes and open water above them
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Dangerous, Poisonous
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- long forward-pointing horn in adults, longer than the snout
- bluish-gray body with fine dark lines on the head and body
- two fixed blades on each side of the tail base
- often high in the water column rather than on the reef
- length up to 60 cm

The unicornfish that actually looks like one. The horn on an adult grows forward past the mouth, longer than the snout itself, and gives the fish a profile nothing else on the reef has. Young fish are hornless and plain, and the horn appears with size.

It is also the one that leaves the reef. Where the other unicornfishes graze the bottom, this species spends much of its time up in the water column, taking drifting algae and plankton in midwater - a herbivore that feeds like a planktivore, which is why the schools hang above the slope rather than on it.

The tail carries the same two fixed blades on each side, and they cut. Nothing about the fish is aggressive, but a netted one is a hazard.

It reaches 60 cm (24 in) and lives a long time. Large fish in parts of its range carry ciguatoxins, which is the reason for the flag rather than anything that happens underwater.

## Also known as

- **English:** spotted unicornfish, Palefin Unicornfish, Brown Unicornfish
- **French:** Nason à rostre court, Nason Pointillé, Corne
- **German:** Einhornfisch
- **Portuguese:** Rufia Manchada
- **Japanese:** Tsumari-tenguhagi, ツマリテングハギ
- **AF:** Gespikkelde eenhoringvis
- **DA:** Langsnudet Næsehornsfisk

## Scientific synonyms

- *Cyphomycter coryphaenoides* Smith, 1955
- *Naseus brevirostris* Cuvier, 1829
- *Naso brevirostris* (Valenciennes, 1835)
- *Naso brevorostris* (Cuvier, 1829)

## Range

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

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/unicornfishes/lined-unicornfish)*
*Updated: August 13, 2026*