Red Sea Marine Life: Fish You'll See Snorkeling in Hurghada

The Red Sea is home to well over a thousand species of fish, and a notable share of them are found nowhere else on earth. You don't need to dive deep to meet them: most of the colour is in the top few metres, exactly where snorkellers float.

Use this guide before your first boat trip, or bring it along on a submarine dive to put names to faces.

Fish you're almost guaranteed to see

• Red Sea anemonefish (clownfish) — orange with white bands, living inside anemones. It's endemic to the region.
• Parrotfish — large, colourful and noisy: you can hear them crunching coral.
• Butterflyfish — including the masked butterflyfish, a yellow Red Sea speciality with a blue 'mask'.
• Anthias — tiny orange fish swarming around coral heads in their hundreds.
• Sergeant majors — striped yellow and black, often curious about snorkellers.
• Surgeonfish and unicornfish — schooling grazers with a sharp spine near the tail.

Special encounters

• Sea turtles — green and hawksbill turtles graze on seagrass and reefs around Giftun and Abu Minqar.
• Blue-spotted stingrays — resting on sand near the reef edge.
• Moray eels — peering out of crevices; don't put your hands near them.
• Napoleon (humphead) wrasse — huge, gentle and protected.
• Spinner dolphins — see our Dolphin House guide.

Look, don't touch: animals to respect

A handful of reef creatures can hurt you if you touch or step on them. None are aggressive — accidents happen when people stand on the reef or reach out.

• Lionfish — beautiful, with venomous spines.
• Stonefish — perfectly camouflaged; never stand on the reef.
• Fire coral — looks like yellowish-brown coral and stings on contact.
• Sea urchins — long black spines in shallow water; wear water shoes when wading.
• Titan triggerfish — can defend its nest in summer; swim away sideways if it approaches.

How to protect the reef

Coral is a colony of living animals that grows slowly. Float, don't stand; keep your fins off the bottom; use mineral reef-safe sunscreen and a rash vest; and never feed fish. On every Hurghada Day Trips sea excursion, your guide explains these rules before anyone enters the water.

Where to see the most marine life

For beginners, the reefs visited on the Giftun trip and the house reef at Mahmya are ideal. Non-swimmers can see the reef dry from the semi-submarine or learn the species first at the Grand Aquarium. Ready for the next step? An intro dive takes you face to face with the reef, and anglers can meet groupers and snappers on the fishing trip.

Frequently asked questions