---
title: Fivefinger Razorfish (Iniistius pentadactylus)
scientific_name: Iniistius pentadactylus
common_name: Fivefinger Razorfish
taxon: Wrasse
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-10-28T19:37:19.937Z
updated: 2026-08-14T09:56:30.265Z
tags: Fivefinger Razorfish, Iniistius pentadactylus, Wrasse, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/wrasse/fivefinger-razorfish
---

# Fivefinger Razorfish (*Iniistius pentadactylus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Wrasse (*Labridae*)
- **Size:** up to 25 cm
- **Depth:** 5-60 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Silty sand and rubble flats, often deeper than its relatives
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Protogynous hermaphrodite
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- blade-shaped body, pale with a red-brown blotch behind the pectoral fin
- first dorsal rays separated and often held up like fingers
- steep forehead with a straight profile
- length up to 25 cm

A razorfish of silty flats, paler and slighter than the peacock, with the first few dorsal rays separated from the rest of the fin and raised like fingers - which is where the name comes from.

It uses the same escape as every razorfish: a head-first dive into the bottom, and a short swim through the sediment before it stops. The blade-thin body and the vertical face are the reason it works, and on silt it is even more effective than on clean sand, because the cloud it raises hides the exit.

It lives deeper than its relative, usually below five meters and down to sixty, on the kind of featureless bottom divers cross rather than explore. Small crustaceans and worms are the diet, sorted out of the sediment.

Twenty-five centimeters (10 in). The two razorfish here are separated by habitat as much as by markings: peacock on clean coarse sand near reef, this one on the silty flats beyond.

## Also known as

- **English:** Fivefinger Razorfish, Red-spot razor wrasse, Five-finger Razorfish
- **Hebrew:** להבי נקוד
- **French:** Labre-rasoir à points rouges, Rason ocellé
- **Spanish:** Cuchilla ocelada, Cuchillo pastel
- **Portuguese:** Bodião-limonada
- **Czech:** pyskoun pětiprstý
- **Japanese:** ヒラベラ, Hirabera
- **Chinese:** 五指楔鯛, 五指連鰭唇魚, 五指離鰭鯛
- **TAH:** po'ou

## Scientific synonyms

- *Coryphaena pentadactyla* Linnaeus, 1758
- *Hemipteronotus pentadactylus* (Linnaeus, 1758)
- *Novacula sexmaculata* Valenciennes, 1840
- *Novocula sexmaculata* Valenciennes, 1840
- *Xirichthys cyanirostris* Guérin-Méneville, 1829
- *Xirichtys cyanirostris* Guérin-Méneville, 1829
- *Xyrichthys virens* Valenciennes, 1840
- *Xyrichtys pentadactylos* (Linnaeus, 1758)
- *Xyrichtys pentadactylus* (Linnaeus, 1758)
- *Xyrichtys virens* Valenciennes, 1840

---

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