---
title: Axilspot Hogfish (Bodianus axillaris)
scientific_name: Bodianus axillaris
common_name: Axilspot Hogfish
taxon: Wrasse
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-01-01T12:37:59.527Z
updated: 2026-08-14T10:03:13.474Z
tags: Axilspot Hogfish, Bodianus axillaris, Wrasse, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/wrasse/axilspot-hogfish
---

# Axilspot Hogfish (*Bodianus axillaris*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Wrasse (*Labridae*)
- **Size:** up to 20 cm
- **Depth:** 2-100 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Caves, overhangs and steep drop-offs
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Protogynous hermaphrodite
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- adults with a dark front half and a pale rear, split cleanly down the middle
- black spot at the base of the pectoral fin
- juveniles black with bold white spots, hovering under overhangs
- length up to 20 cm

An adult split down the middle - dark in front, pale behind - with a black mark in the armpit that gives it the name. Twenty centimeters (8 in), and usually found near the roof of a cave rather than out on the reef.

The juvenile is unmistakable and completely different: black with large round white spots, and it hovers under overhangs picking parasites off other fish. Young hogfish work as cleaners, which buys a small vulnerable animal safe conduct among larger ones, and they drop the trade as they grow.

Adults hunt hard-shelled prey on the reef - crabs, brittle stars, small molluscs - with the heavy canines the group is named for.

It is a deep-water fish as much as a shallow one, recorded to a hundred meters, and the ones divers see are at the shallow end of that range. Look for the juveniles first: at overhangs, in shade, spotted, and busy.

## Also known as

- **English:** axilspot hogfish, Axil Pigfish, Axil hogfish
- **Hebrew:** הדורית נקודת-ארבע
- **French:** Labre à tache pectorale, Labre bicolore, Tamarin
- **Italian:** Pesce porco puntinato
- **German:** Zweifleck-Schweinslippfisch
- **Spanish:** Doncella Bicolor
- **Portuguese:** Bodião-axilar
- **Czech:** ostnatec pažďoskvrnný
- **Japanese:** スミツキベラ, Sumitsukibera
- **Chinese:** 三齒仔, 日本婆仔, 紅娘仔
- **Russian:** Пятнистопазушный бодиан
- **CA:** Làbrid bicolor
- **DA:** Treplettet læbefisk
- **DIV:** Hikaa
- **TAH:** po'ou
- **TH:** ปลานกขุนทองหน้าหมูจุดดำ

## Scientific synonyms

- *Cossyphus octomaculatus* Liénard, 1891
- *Crossyphus octomaculatus* Sauvage, 1891
- *Labrus axillaris* Bennett, 1832
- *Lepidaplois albomaculatus* Smith, 1957
- *Lepidaplois axillaris* (Bennett, 1832)

## Range

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

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/wrasse/axilspot-hogfish)*
*Updated: August 14, 2026*