About Pterois antennata (Bloch, 1787)
Pterois antennata (Bloch, 1787) has a laterally compressed, rather deep body. Its dorsal fin contains 13 spines and 11 or 12 soft rays, while its anal fin contains 3 spines and 6 soft rays. A long tentacle grows above each eye, and both coronal spines and many additional head spines are present. The pectoral fin has 17 simple fin rays. Both the upper and lower jaws hold many very small teeth; these teeth are arranged in clusters on either side of the mouth, with an additional small patch at the front of the mouth’s roof. This species reaches a maximum total length of 20 cm (7.9 in). Its overall body color is reddish-brown, marked with numerous darker vertical bars that range from slender to wide; these bars are thin and angled on the caudal peduncle. Dark spots are scattered across the anal, dorsal, and caudal fins. The head is marked with 3 dark brown bars, one of which is a diagonal bar running through the eye that ends in a large spot on the lower operculum. The long tentacles above each eye are banded, and larger adults have bluish-black blotches near the bases of the pectoral fins. Pterois antennata has a wide distribution across the Indo-West Pacific, ranging from the Gulf of Aden south to South Africa, east to French Polynesia, north to southern Japan, and south to Australia and the Kermadec Islands of New Zealand. In Australian waters, its range extends from Fremantle in Western Australia, north and east along tropical northern coasts, reaching at least as far south as Sydney in New South Wales. It is also found at Ashmore Reef in the Timor Sea, on reefs in the Coral Sea, in the waters around Lord Howe Island, at the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and at Christmas Island. It inhabits lagoon and seaward reefs at depths between 2 and 86 m (6 ft 7 in and 282 ft 2 in). This species is caught by some subsistence fisheries, but its small size and venomous spines make it of little interest to commercial fisheries. It is, however, common in the aquarium trade.
