Forms the slow-turning barracuda schools; a different fish from the solitary great barracuda.
To about 90 cm, silver with about twenty dark chevron bars angled across the flanks and a blackish forked tail. The great barracuda is larger, has scattered dark blotches rather than chevrons, and is almost always alone.
It schools by day in tight aggregations of dozens to several hundred that hold in current at particular points on outer reef, rotating slowly, and disperses at dusk to hunt. The schools are site-faithful over years, which is why particular walls are known for them. A diver approaching slowly and low can usually work into the edge of a school; bubbles from directly below break it up. Recorded from about 5 to 50 m.
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.