Spotted knifejaw
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An illustration based on the real animal.
A little discovery to share.
The spotted knifejaw crushes turban snails and sea urchins to eat them.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Spotted knifejaw
- Scientific name
- Oplegnathus punctatus
- Japanese name
- イシガキダイ
- Group
- Ocean animals
- Order
- Perciformes
- Family
- Oplegnathidae
- Genus
- Oplegnathus
As it grows, its mouth turns white, and it is sometimes called kuchijiro, meaning white mouth.
It lives on rocky coasts, in Japanese seas from Hokkaido to Kyushu and along the coasts of the Korean Peninsula, Taiwan and China.
How the Spotted knifejaw lives
It can be seen in the sea off Shonai around autumn. In old males, the stone-wall-like body pattern disappears and the whole body turns black.
鶴岡市立加茂水族館Basic data
- Range
- Southern Korean Peninsula, Jeju Island, Taiwan, Chinese coast, Yellow Sea, and elsewhere
Where the Spotted knifejaw 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
- イシガキダイ
- 简体中文
- 斑石鲷
- 繁體中文
- 斑石鯛
- 한국어
- 강담돔
- Español
- Pez perico de roca
- Português (Brasil)
- Perca-papagaio-pintada
- Русский
- Пятнистый оплегнат
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 — イシガキダイChecked: 2026-11-04
- 新潟市水族館 マリンピア日本海 — イシガキダイChecked: 2026-11-07
- 鶴岡市立加茂水族館 — イシガキダイChecked: 2026-11-07
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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