Pigmy sweeper

Amazing fact

The Pigmy sweeper has light-producing organs on its chest and near its anus.

新潟市水族館マリンピア日本海

Pigmy sweeper in its habitat (illustration)

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An illustration based on the real animal.

A little discovery to share.

The Pigmy sweeper has light-producing organs on its chest and near its anus.

Source新潟市水族館マリンピア日本海 — キンメモドキ

THE REAL WORLD

The real Pigmy sweeper

Scientific name: Parapriacanthus ransonneti
Japanese name: キンメモドキ
Group: Ocean animals

Order: Pempheriformes
Family: Pempheridae
Genus: Parapriacanthus

Facts about the real animal.

A fish of coastal rocky reefs and coral reefs, found from Japan and Taiwan to the Indo-West Pacific.

鳥羽水族館 — キンメモドキ

It hides in gaps in the coral by day and becomes active at night.

鳥羽水族館 — キンメモドキ

It lives in schools, which sometimes grow huge.

鳥羽水族館 — キンメモドキ

How the Pigmy sweeper lives

It eats animal plankton drifting in the sea. The school follows the fish at the front, changing into a round mass or a long, narrow shape. It forms schools with other fish, including the Spotnape cardinalfish.

アクアマリンふくしま宇久井ビジターセンター

Basic data

Active: At night (nocturnal)
Range: Hachijojima, Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, the Indo-West Pacific, and elsewhere

鳥羽水族館

Where the Pigmy sweeper 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: キンメモドキ
简体中文: 拟单鳍鱼
繁體中文: 雷氏充金眼鯛
한국어: 황안어
Français: Poisson-hachette nain
Deutsch: Indischer Glasfisch
Português (Brasil): Papudinha-rosada
Русский: Вытянутый параприакантус

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 — キンメモドキChecked: 2026-11-04
アクアマリンふくしま — キンメモドキChecked: 2026-11-07
新潟市水族館マリンピア日本海 — キンメモドキChecked: 2026-11-07
宇久井ビジターセンター — キンメモドキ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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