Red lionfish
Amazing fact
The red lionfish approaches small fish from below and sucks them into its mouth.
University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web
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An illustration based on the real animal.
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The red lionfish approaches small fish from below and sucks them into its mouth.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Red lionfish
- Scientific name
- Pterois volitans
- Japanese name
- ハナミノカサゴ
- Group
- Ocean animals
- Order
- Scorpaeniformes
- Family
- Scorpaenidae
- Genus
- Pterois
It lives from Japanese seas south of Chiba and the Ryukyus to Taiwan and across the Pacific.
It looks like the mino-kasago lionfish, but it has black spots on its dorsal, anal and tail fins.
It looks showy, but the spines of its dorsal fin are venomous, making it a danger to divers.
How the Red lionfish lives
At night, it moves by slowly rippling its dorsal and anal fins. It mainly eats crustaceans and small fish. At sunrise, it retreats to shaded places among coral and rocks. Adults spend most of their lives alone.
University of Michigan Animal Diversity WebBasic data
- Range
- Ryukyu Islands, northeastern and southern Taiwan, eastern Indian Ocean to Pacific, Atlantic Ocean, and elsewhere
Where the Red lionfish has been recorded
Records: GBIF.org (CC0 and CC BY 4.0 records, retrieved 2026-11-07). Map: Natural EarthSee the records on GBIF
Watch wild animals from a distance. Do not touch or feed them, and take care of the places where they live.
Names around the world
- 日本語
- ハナミノカサゴ
- 简体中文
- 魔鬼蓑鲉
- 繁體中文
- 魔鬼簑鮋
- 한국어
- 점쏠배감펭
- Español
- Pez león colorado
- Français
- Rascasse volante du Pacifique
- Deutsch
- Pazifischer Rotfeuerfisch
- Português (Brasil)
- Peixe-leão-vermelho
- Italiano
- Pesce leone orientale
- العربية
- سمكة التنين الحمراء
- Bahasa Indonesia
- Ikan lepu ayam
- Tiếng Việt
- Cá mao tiên
- Русский
- Крылатка-зебра
- Türkçe
- Volitan'ın Aslan Balığı
- ไทย
- ปลาสิงโตปีก
Names come from Wikidata and iNaturalist records. Where a language has no recorded name, we use the scientific name.
Sources and how we check
- 鳥羽水族館 — ハナミノカサゴChecked: 2026-11-04
- University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web — Pterois volitansChecked: 2026-11-06
We check each fact against its source. The illustrations simplify how the real animal looks.
The classification (class, order, family, genus) follows Wikidata records, checked against GBIF. Classifications can change as research goes on.
The basic data are the values given in each source. They vary with how the animal is measured, whether it is male or female, and whether it lives in the wild or in captivity.
This page was translated from the original Japanese with the help of AI.
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