Orange head, dark rear body and a big red tail; works crevices and ledges as a cleaner.
To about 14 cm, and the most strongly two-toned of the region’s Doryrhamphus: head and forward body orange to yellow, rear body dark brown, and a large rounded caudal fin in red with pale margins. The bluestripe pipefish is half the length and carries a blue line along an orange body rather than a division across it. The banded and yellow-banded pipefishes, both Dunckerocampus, are ringed or banded along their whole length. Juveniles are less cleanly divided than adults and can pass for a small pipefish of another species until the tail is seen.
Under ledges, in crevices, around large sponges and at the mouths of small caves, from about 3 to 30 m, usually in pairs and frequently hanging at an angle or upside-down against the roof of a recess. Like others in the genus it takes parasites from other fish, so a pair holding station on one coral head may be running a small cleaning post rather than simply resting. Males brood the eggs on the underside of the tail beneath low membranous folds, and the egg mass is visible from the side.
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.