Six centimeters (2.4 in) - the smallest scorpionfish in this catalogue, living in holes in rubble and almost never visible as a whole animal.
The name is worth knowing. Heinz Steinitz spent decades working on the fishes of this sea from the marine laboratory at Eilat that is now named after him, and a string of 🌊 Red Sea species carry his name: this scorpionfish, the flashlight fish that blinks with bacterial light, and others. A card for a fish this small is also a note about how the local fauna came to be described at all.
Biologically it is the family in miniature: venomous dorsal spines, an ambush strike measured in milliseconds, and a life spent motionless. What changes with size is who eats it - at six centimeters, nearly everything.
Finding one is a torch job, and identifying it usually needs a photograph and a book afterwards.
The genus. Scorpaenodes Bleeker1857 - -oides (having the form of Scorpaena). ETYFish
The species. Scorpaenodes steinitzi Klausewitz & Frøiland 1970 - Honours Heinz Steinitz. ETYFish
- tiny scorpionfish, barely longer than a thumb
- mottled red-brown, often with a pale patch behind the head
- deep in rubble or a small hole, rarely visible whole
- length up to 6 cm
