Diamond lizardfish
Fish · Last reviewed 2026-08-25
The second Canary lizardfish, marked with dark saddles rather than blotches, and an amphi-Atlantic fish that turns up from Florida to Madeira.
Safety: species that bite — minor injury.
Catching Diamond lizardfish
Everything here on fishing for it. Each entry opens the page behind it.
- When
- Feb and May — months recorded at the places that document it, not a season for the whole range.
- Where
- 2 places FishingHQ documents — strongest claim anywhere: recorded here · From the shore
The two lizardfish of Canarian sand are caught over the same ground by the same methods and separated by pattern. Where the Atlantic lizardfish is diffusely blotched, this one carries a series of sharply defined dark saddles or diamond-shaped marks down the flank over a reddish-brown ground, and it is often the redder of the two.
It is reef-associated rather than strictly a sand fish — FishBase gives 0 to 144 m and usually 2 to 35 m — and it behaves as the family does: lying still on the bottom near structure and taking small fish from below. A species-hunting angler on Lanzarote recorded seven of them, and recorded one regurgitating an ornate wrasse it had swallowed whole, which is a useful piece of information about how much fish a thirty-centimetre ambush predator is prepared to eat.
Its range is genuinely wide and split: Madeira, the Canaries and St Helena in the eastern Atlantic, extending to São Tomé, and in the western Atlantic from Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to Uruguay including the Caribbean, with a northerly record from Canada. FishBase records a maximum of 43 cm.
As with its relative, the practical points are that it is caught on lures worked over clean ground beside rock, that it takes them from underneath, and that the teeth are the reason to carry pliers.
How it is caught
Where Diamond lizardfish is documented
Places where public sources describe this species as fished, with how it is fished and how strongly the evidence supports it. This is not a range map and it is not a recommendation — it is what has been written down about a fishery rather than a record of any individual catch, and being listed is never permission to fish.
Lanzarote
1 documented place
The cliff coast between Puerto del Carmen and Puerto Calero
Rock mark
Recorded here
From the shore
Reported May
What these strengths mean
- Recorded here
- At least one credible public account of this species being caught here. That is all it means.
Identification
No photograph of Diamond lizardfish has passed identity review yet, so none is shown. FishingHQ publishes a species photograph only once somebody has confirmed the animal in it against the species record’s own diagnostic features.
- Scientific name
- Synodus synodus
- Family
- Synodontidae
- Water
- Saltwater
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Regions
- Western Europe, West Africa, North America, Caribbean, Central & South America
- A row of sharply defined dark saddles or diamond-shaped blotches along the flank, more clearly bounded than the Atlantic lizardfish's diffuse bars.
- Ground colour frequently reddish-brown rather than the sandy brown of its relative.
- The same lizardfish outline: long round body, broad flat head, high forward eyes, wide mouth full of fine teeth, and an adipose fin behind the dorsal.
- Reef-associated as well as sand-associated, and taken closer to structure than the Atlantic lizardfish often is.
- FishBase records a maximum of 43 cm, slightly larger than Synodus saurus.
Size
- Typical
- 15–28 cm
- Large
- 30 cm and over
Exceptional: FishBase records a maximum of 43 cm
Lifecycle and reproduction
Reef-associated over a depth range of 0 to 144 m and usually 2 to 35 m. Medium resilience. Sedentary, holding to particular patches of ground beside structure.
Not documented on the FishBase record for this species, and not supplied from the family or from its congener. The honest state of its reproductive biology is that it has not been written down, and a catalogue that filled the gap from the better-studied western Atlantic populations would be asserting something nobody has established.
Feeding and senses
An ambush predator taking small fish and crustaceans by launching upward from the bottom. One taken on Lanzarote regurgitated a whole ornate wrasse, which sets the scale honestly: it will attempt prey most of the way to its own head length, and a lure of three or four inches is not too large for it.
Upward vision at short range in clear water, triggered by silhouette and movement above. It is unbothered by an angler above the surface and entirely focused on the water column immediately over it.
Through the year
Resident year-round on the same ground. Across a range running from Canada to Uruguay and from Madeira to São Tomé the seasonal picture necessarily differs, and in the subtropical island part of it — which is where the documented captures come from — it is available in every month.
Distribution
Eastern Atlantic: Madeira, Canary Islands, and St. Helena Island ; range extending to São Tomé Island . Western Atlantic: Florida, USA and southwestern Gulf of Mexico to Uruguay , including the Caribbean . Northwest Atlantic: Canada
This is a biological range — where the species occurs, not a prediction that you will catch one. To browse the fishing geography FishingHQ holds, start at fishing places.
Why anglers care
A regular light-lure capture over Canarian and Madeiran mixed ground, and an amphi-Atlantic fish that a Florida or Caribbean angler meets under the same name. Taken on paddletails, grubs and small jigs worked over sand and rubble beside rock. Its interest is behavioural rather than sporting: it is the fish that explains why a lure sized for a wrasse gets hit by something with a mouth like a trap.
Handling and returning
Fine backward-raked teeth in a mouth that takes a lure well inside it. Pliers, a grip across the body behind the head, and a cut trace on anything hooked deep.
Safety
Species that bite — Minor injury
Fine needle teeth graze and cut a finger put into the mouth, most often while retrieving a swallowed jighead.
What reduces it: Unhook with long-nosed pliers, hold the fish across the body rather than by the jaw, and cut the trace on a deeply hooked fish.
Where to go next
Similar and related fish
Where it lives
More fish
Not related to this page — just the rest of the section. There is little else joined to this subject yet, and a short page should still lead somewhere.
Sources and evidence
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Family, maximum size, depth range, environment, distribution and the IUCN assessment for Synodus synodus.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species — International Union for Conservation of Nature (Conservation authority)Relied on for: The Least Concern assessment for Synodus synodus, assessed 29 January 2013.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- Species hunting adventures on Lanzarote — a four-part shore diary with a full tally — Something Fishy Going On (angling blog), parts also posted to World Sea Fishing, 2014 (Practitioner report)Relied on for: That this species is taken from named public shore marks on Lanzarote, how many were caught across one week in May, and the light-tackle methods and baits that took them.States this directlyPassage read and verified
Why the 4 connections on this page are here, and the sources
Similar and related fish
Backed by research — 1 connection
Supported by peer-reviewed research or fisheries science. The sources are listed and can be checked.
Atlantic lizardfish
Synodus saurus carries diffuse dark blotches and is recorded as demersal; Synodus synodus carries sharply defined dark saddles, is often redder, and is recorded as reef-associated. The same observer took both in one week and counted them separately.
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: The morphology, size, depth range and distribution that separate these two species from one another.States this directlyPassage read and verified
How it is caught
Reported, not established — 1 connection
Reported, but without independent support. Recorded because it is in circulation, not because it has been shown to hold.
Light rock fishing
Recorded seven times on the Puerto Calero clifftop marks on paddletails and grubs on jigheads. One regurgitated a whole ornate wrasse, which sets the useful upper bound on lure size for it.
- Species hunting adventures on Lanzarote — a four-part shore diary with a full tally — Something Fishy Going On (angling blog), parts also posted to World Sea Fishing, 2014 (Practitioner report)Relied on for: The light-tackle methods, rigs, lures, baits and hook sizes a species-hunting angler used on Lanzarote, and the species each took.States this directlyPassage read and verified
Where it lives
Backed by research — 2 connections
Supported by peer-reviewed research or fisheries science. The sources are listed and can be checked.
Inshore ground
Recorded as reef-associated over a depth range of 0 to 144 m and usually 2 to 35 m — a slightly more structure-associated fish than Synodus saurus over the same class of bottom.
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Environment, depth range, habitat association and distribution for Synodus synodus.States this directlyPassage read and verified
Rocky shores and reefs
FishBase records this species as reef-associated where it records Synodus saurus as demersal. That difference is small and it is the source's own, and it is why one gets this edge and the other does not.
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Environment, depth range, habitat association and distribution for Synodus synodus.States this directlyPassage read and verified
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy.