Houndfish

The houndfish, also called the crocodile needlefish, is the largest member of the needlefish family. It is a long, silver, surface-living fish with narrow toothed jaws, and divers usually see it hanging in the open water above lagoons and seaward reefs, alone or in small groups. It hunts smaller fish.

Also known as: crocodile needlefish, giant long-tom, hound needlefish, crocodilian longtom, crocodile longtom, crocodile long-tom, choram long-tom

Look up. A long silver fish with a dark blue back and a beak-like pair of jaws, holding still just under the surface, is a needlefish. The houndfish is the thickset one: the body is stout and round in section rather than ribbon-thin, and the head looks short behind the long beak. Check the tail, which is deeply forked and carries a raised ridge on each side of the narrow tail base.

The body is long and cylindrical, but noticeably more solid than in other needlefishes, and the head is shorter. The back is dark blue, the sides are silver-white and the belly is plain white. The tail is deeply forked, and there is a distinct keel, a raised ridge, on the caudal peduncle, the narrow part of the body just before the tail. Juveniles have a raised black lobe at the rear of the dorsal fin, and their teeth point forwards.

This is an open-water fish of warm seas. It ranges through the Indian and Pacific Oceans, from the Red Sea and the South African coast east to French Polynesia, north towards Japan and south to eastern Australia, and it also lives on both sides of the Atlantic. It has spread into the eastern Mediterranean through the Suez Canal. Divers meet it in the blue water above lagoons and seaward reefs, usually close to the surface. The eggs carry fine threads on their surface, which tangle around objects in the water and hold the eggs in place.

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  Atlantic needlefish

  Strongylura marina

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  Garfish

  Belone belone

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  Needlefish

  garfish