A small eastern Pacific tuna with dark stripes on the back, passing in fast schools off the rock.
To about 85 cm. A dark blue back carrying a patch of five or six near-horizontal black stripes that run forward only as far as the front of the first dorsal fin, and several dark spots low on the sides between the pectoral and pelvic fins. The front of the body is covered by a scaled corselet and the rest is scaleless.
The skipjack tuna is the confusion and the answer is which surface the stripes are on: on the back here, on the belly there.
One to forty metres, in coastal water and around offshore reefs, often near floating debris, and it forms mixed schools with yellowfin and skipjack tuna.
Ratings are per location: 1 means found on most dives that look for it, 5 means a handful of records. Where enough dives have been logged the figure is calculated from them; otherwise it is an editorial estimate, and says so. We publish habitat and destination, not the dive site.