Short dragonfish

Amazing fact

The short dragonfish wears bony armour and resembles bits of shell or rubble.

Australian Museum

Short dragonfish in its habitat (illustration)

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An illustration based on the real animal.

A little discovery to share.

The short dragonfish wears bony armour and resembles bits of shell or rubble.

SourceAustralian Museum — Little Dragonfish, Eurypegasus draconis (Linneaus, 1766)

THE REAL WORLD

The real Short dragonfish

Scientific name: Eurypegasus draconis
Japanese name: ウミテング
Group: Ocean animals

Order: Syngnathiformes
Family: Pegasidae
Genus: Eurypegasus

Facts about the real animal.

Where the name “Short dragonfish” comes from

Its Japanese name is said to come from its long snout resembling the nose of a tengu. The latter part of its scientific name comes from a Latin word meaning dragon or serpent.

いおワールドかごしま水族館 Museums Victoria and OzFishNet

Instead of swimming around, it lives on the sandy bottom of shallow seas.

鳥羽水族館 — ウミテング

It is often seen in male and female pairs.

鳥羽水族館 — ウミテング

It lives from Japan's Pacific coast across wide areas of the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

鳥羽水族館 — ウミテング

How the Short dragonfish lives

It crawls over the seabed on finger-like pelvic fins, seeking small crustaceans and molluscs. At dusk during mating, fish rise rapidly from the seabed and release eggs and sperm into the water. After hatching, the young drift in open water as they grow, then settle on the seabed.

Museums Victoria and OzFishNet

Basic data

Range: Indo-Pacific excluding the Hawaiian Islands

鳥羽水族館

Where the Short dragonfish has been recorded

Records: GBIF.org (CC0 and CC BY 4.0 records, retrieved 2026-11-07). Map: Natural EarthSee the records on GBIF

Where it livesJapan Asia World oceans Coasts

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: ウミテング
简体中文: 宽海蛾鱼
繁體中文: 寬海蛾魚
Español: Pez pegaso
Français: Pégase
Deutsch: Zwerg-Flügelrossfisch
Português (Brasil): Peixe-mariposa-anão
Italiano: Pesce pegaso
Tiếng Việt: Cá Rồng thân to
Русский: Пегас-дракон
ไทย: ปลาผีเสื้อกลางคืน

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 — ウミテングChecked: 2026-11-04
いおワールドかごしま水族館 — ウミテングChecked: 2026-11-07
Museums Victoria and OzFishNet — Little Dragonfish, Eurypegasus draconis (Linnaeus 1766)Checked: 2026-11-07
Australian Museum — Little Dragonfish, Eurypegasus draconis (Linneaus, 1766)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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