Lined surgeonfish
Amazing fact
Lined surgeonfish use swallowed sand to grind food in their thick-walled stomachs.
University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web
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An illustration based on the real animal.
A little discovery to share.
Lined surgeonfish use swallowed sand to grind food in their thick-walled stomachs.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Lined surgeonfish
- Scientific name
- Acanthurus lineatus
- Japanese name
- ニジハギ
- Group
- Ocean animals
- Order
- Perciformes
- Family
- Acanthuridae
- Genus
- Acanthurus
It lives across a wide area, from Sagami Bay and the Izu Peninsula to the Ryukyu Islands, and in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
How the Lined surgeonfish lives
They feed in shallow water during the day. They graze on algae with rounded teeth that have jagged edges. They defend the algae in their territories from other fish. They spend the night in deep-water crevices.
University of Michigan Animal Diversity WebBasic data
- Range
- Hachijo Island, Ogasawara Islands, Iwo Jima, Minami-Iwo Jima, Okinotorishima, and elsewhere
Where the Lined surgeonfish 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
- ニジハギ
- 简体中文
- 彩带刺尾鱼
- 繁體中文
- 線紋刺尾鯛
- 한국어
- 빗질양쥐돔
- Español
- Pez cirujano
- Français
- Chirurgien à Lignes Bleues
- Deutsch
- Blaustreifen-Doktorfisch
- Português (Brasil)
- Cirurgião zebra
- Italiano
- Pesce chirurgo striato
- العربية
- عُلبة سرطان مُنقَّطة
- Bahasa Indonesia
- Botana kasur
- Русский
- Полосатый хирург
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 — ニジハギChecked: 2026-11-04
- University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web — Acanthurus lineatusChecked: 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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