Reef stonefish
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An illustration based on the real animal.
A little discovery to share.
Reef stonefish shed their outer skin by peeling it off bit by bit.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Reef stonefish
- Scientific name
- Synanceia verrucosa
- Japanese name
- オニダルマオコゼ
- Group
- Ocean animals
- Order
- Scorpaeniformes
- Family
- Synanceiidae
- Genus
- Synanceia
It lives mainly in shallow tropical seas from southern Japan to the Red Sea and the Indian and Pacific Oceans, sometimes even in tide pools.
It usually lives alone and catches fish and crustaceans that come close to its mouth.
The spines of its dorsal fin carry venom; a sting is extremely painful and can even be deadly.
How the Reef stonefish lives
It is more active at night than during the day. It scoops sand with its pectoral fins to partly bury its body. To capture prey, it suddenly opens its large mouth and sucks the prey in. The female lays a gelatinous egg mass while swimming across the seafloor.
Aquarium of the PacificBasic data
- Diet
- Fish and crustaceans
- Range
- Hachijo Island, Ogasawara Islands, Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, Red Sea, and Indo-Pacific, excluding the Hawaiian and Line Islands, and elsewhere
Where the Reef stonefish 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
- オニダルマオコゼ
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 — オニダルマオコゼChecked: 2026-11-04
- 葛西臨海水族園（東京動物園協会） — オニダルマオコゼの擬態と脱皮Checked: 2026-11-07
- Aquarium of the Pacific — Reef StonefishChecked: 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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