Sits just under the surface, and is the fish most likely to injure someone in the water at night.
To about 130 cm, extremely elongate, blue-green above and silver below, with both jaws drawn out into a long beak full of fine teeth and a keel on the caudal peduncle. It holds within the top metre of water and is most often seen from below as a silhouette during a safety stop.
It hunts small fish at the surface in fast runs and will leap clear of the water when startled or when chasing prey. Needlefish are attracted to lights at night, and a fish travelling at speed just under the surface has caused serious puncture injuries to people in boats and in the water throughout the Indo-Pacific — the practical caution is to avoid pointing a torch outward across the surface at night, particularly from a small boat. Recorded from the surface to about 5 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.