A metre and a half of fish that is almost invisible end-on.
To about 160 cm including the tail filament, extremely elongate, round in cross-section, silver to olive above with two rows of blue spots or dashes along the back that can be switched on and off, and a long thread trailing from the centre of the tail. Trumpetfish is the confusion; the cornetfish is longer, thinner, has the tail filament and swims horizontally.
It hunts small fish and shrimps over sand, rubble and reef, approaching end-on so that almost nothing of it is visible to the prey, then expanding the tubular snout to draw the fish in. It hangs motionless above open sand for long periods, which makes it easy to swim past. Groups of several fish hunt loosely together. Recorded from the shallows to about 45 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.