Broad-banded Cardinalfish

Ostorhinchus fasciatus is an ovoid shaped fish with large eyes, a blunt snout, a large, oblique mouth which reaches the eye and a forked caudal fin. The body shows slight ventral compression. In colour it is a generally white to pinkish grey in colour with two dark stripes on the dorsal half of body: one is a broad, plain stripe either side of the lateral line from the tip of the snout to the central rays of the caudal fin; the second is a narrower stripe starting above eye and reaching to the upper part of the caudal peduncle. It frequently has an incomplete dusky stripe which lies between the two main stripes. Its colour fades to silvery white on the posterior portion of the belly. It has two dorsal fins, the first of which has a tiny spine at the front with the second and third spines being much longer. The anal fin lies directly below the posterior dorsal fin. The colour of the fins is pinkish-orange and larger fish have a line of brown spots on the membranes of second dorsal fin and the anal fin. It grows to a maximum total length of 10.3 cm but is normally 7 cm, standard length

Ostorhinchus fasciatus has a natural distribution which is Indo-West Pacific from the Red Sea and Persian Gulf south to Mozambique in the west, eastwards through the Indian Ocean to the western Pacific where it occurs as far north as Japan and as far south as Sydney. Also present in the eastern Basin of the Mediterranean Sea since its first appearance off Israel in 2009, it is now very common from Egypt to Turkey.