---
title: Lyretail Hogfish (Bodianus anthioides)
scientific_name: Bodianus anthioides
common_name: Lyretail Hogfish
taxon: Wrasse
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-01-01T12:17:47.194Z
updated: 2026-08-20T11:54:57.160Z
tags: Lyretail Hogfish, Bodianus anthioides, Wrasse, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/wrasse/lyretail-hogfish
---

# Lyretail Hogfish (*Bodianus anthioides*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Wrasse (*Labridae*)
- **Size:** up to 24 cm
- **Depth:** 6-80 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Steep outer slopes and drop-offs
- **Reproduction:** Protogynous hermaphrodite
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- deeply forked lyre-shaped tail with long trailing lobes
- mottled brown front half, white rear half with dark speckling
- juveniles small, dark and pale-tailed, often among anthias
- up to 24 cm

The name means anthias-like, and it was given for the young.

Juvenile lyretail hogfish are small, dark, deep-bodied and carry a pale forked tail, and they live in the same water as the anthias clouds that hang over drop-offs here. Mixed into that swarm, a young hogfish is one more small fish among thousands, and a predator hunting anthias has to pick it out of a moving crowd of near-identical shapes. It is protection bought entirely with other animals' bodies.

The adult leaves that behind and becomes a solitary fish of steep outer slopes, working down the wall alone, and its tail keeps the lyre shape into a body that no longer needs to keep up with a swarm.

A deeply forked tail like that is a cruising tail: efficient over distance, poor for sudden acceleration, which fits a fish that patrols large stretches of wall rather than ambushing anything.

It goes deep, recorded past eighty meters, and on a wall dive here it is usually seen once, at the deepest point, and not again.

## Also known as

- **English:** lyretail hogfish, Lyre-tail hogfish, Lyretail Pigfish
- **Arabic:** Muesy
- **Hebrew:** הדורִית חצויה, הדורית חצויה
- **French:** Labre lyre, Caudène
- **Italian:** Labride dalla coda a lira
- **German:** Zweifarben-Schweinslippfisch
- **Spanish:** Doncella Cola de Lira
- **Portuguese:** Bodião-cauda-de-lira
- **Dutch:** Lierstaartlipvis
- **Czech:** ostnatec bradáčovitý
- **Japanese:** ヒオドシベラ, Hiodoshibera
- **Chinese:** 三齒仔, 似花普提魚, 日本婆仔
- **Russian:** Лирохвостый бодиан
- **AF:** Lierstert-varkvis
- **CA:** Làbrid cua de lira
- **DA:** Tofarvet svinefisk
- **MSA:** Hogfish ekor cogak, Nuri ekor panjang, Bayan
- **SMO:** Sugale
- **TAH:** po'ou

## Scientific synonyms

- *Bodianus anthoides* (Bennett, 1832)
- *Cossyphus bicolor* Liénard, 1891
- *Cossyphus boutoni* Liénard, 1891
- *Cossyphus zosterophorus* Bleeker, 1857
- *Crenilabrus anthioides* Bennett, 1832
- *Lepidaplois anthioides* (Bennett, 1832)

## Range

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

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/wrasse/lyretail-hogfish)*
*Updated: August 20, 2026*