---
title: Surf Redfish (Actinopyga mauritiana)
scientific_name: Actinopyga mauritiana
common_name: Surf Redfish
taxon: Sea cucumber
conservation_status: VU - Vulnerable
published: 2026-08-05T23:57:33.573Z
updated: 2026-08-20T17:09:45.965Z
tags: Surf Redfish, Actinopyga mauritiana, Sea cucumber, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/echinoderms/sea-cucumber/surf-redfish
---

# Surf Redfish (*Actinopyga mauritiana*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Sea cucumber (*Holothuroidea*)
- **Size:** up to 30 cm
- **Depth:** 0-10 m
- **Diet:** Detritivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Surge-swept reef flats and rocky shallows
- **Conservation status:** VU - Vulnerable

## How to recognise it

- brown wrinkled upper surface, cream underside
- flattened sole gripping bare rock
- five anal teeth
- length up to 30 cm

A tough, flattened sea cucumber to about 30 cm (12 in), dark brown and deeply wrinkled above, abruptly cream or pale below. The flat sole grips bare rock rather than sand, and the body wall is noticeably harder than in most relatives - an animal built for a place where a soft one would be torn loose.

That place is the surge zone: reef flats and rocky shallows from the waterline down to about 10 m (33 ft), where it sits wedged in a hollow through the day and moves out over the algal turf at night to graze detritus and the film of organisms coating the rock. Its grip is strong enough that prying one free by hand can injure it, and there is no reason to try. Commercially it is among the most valuable species in the family, which has emptied the accessible shallows in much of the tropics; the reefs along this coast, with their steep drop and limited flats, hold it in patches rather than the dense beds seen elsewhere. Look on exposed platforms at the top of a wall, not on the sand below.

## Also known as

- **English:** Surge Sea Cucumber, White-spotted Sea Cucumber, Surf Redfish
- **French:** Holothurie brune des brisants, Holothurie des brisants
- **Italian:** Cetriolo di mare macchie bianche, Oloturia macchie bianche
- **Czech:** sumýš mauricijský
- **Japanese:** クリイロナマコ
- **Chinese:** 白底輻肛參
- **Russian:** Актинопига маврикийская

## Scientific synonyms

- *Holothuria mauritiana* Quoy & Gaimard, 1834
- *Muelleria mauritiana* (Quoy & Gaimard, 1834)

## Range

Comoros, Eastern Africa & Madagascar, Federal Republic of Somalia, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, North Pacific Ocean, Red Sea, Republic of Mauritius, Seychelles, Tanzania

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/echinoderms/sea-cucumber/surf-redfish)*
*Updated: August 20, 2026*