Threadfin cardinalfish
Amazing fact
Male threadfin cardinalfish guard eggs inside their mouths until they hatch.
いおワールドかごしま水族館
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An illustration based on the real animal.
A little discovery to share.
Male threadfin cardinalfish guard eggs inside their mouths until they hatch.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Threadfin cardinalfish
- Scientific name
- Zoramia leptacantha
- Japanese name
- イトヒキテンジクダイ
- Group
- Ocean animals
- Order
- Kurtiformes
- Family
- Apogonidae
- Genus
- Zoramia
Where the name “Threadfin cardinalfish” comes from
The species part of its scientific name comes from Greek words meaning "small" and "spine or thorn".
Museums VictoriaIt lives from the Ryukyu Islands to the Indian Ocean, including the Red Sea, and the western Pacific.
The area around its eyes is blue, and its front dorsal fin is long and extended.
How the Threadfin cardinalfish lives
It sometimes lives in bays with murky water. At breeding time, a male and female pair up and move a little away from the school. The female lays her eggs in a clump.
Museums Victoriaいおワールドかごしま水族館Basic data
- Range
- Ryukyu Islands, Indo-West Pacific including Red Sea, Marshall Islands, Fiji Islands, and Samoan Islands
Where the Threadfin cardinalfish 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
- イトヒキテンジクダイ
- 简体中文
- 弱棘狸天竺鲷
- 繁體中文
- 弱棘貍天竺鯛
- Español
- Apogon leptacanthus
- Français
- Apogon à rayures bleues
- Deutsch
- Fadenflossen-Kardinalbarsch
- Bahasa Indonesia
- Capungan corek biru
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 — イトヒキテンジクダイChecked: 2026-11-04
- Museums Victoria — Longspine Cardinalfish, Zoramia leptacanthaChecked: 2026-11-07
- いおワールドかごしま水族館 — イトヒキテンジクダイ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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