A small crevice pipefish with a dark flank stripe and a paddle-shaped tail fin.
A small pipefish to about 6 cm, the body pale grey to brown with a dark brown to black stripe running from the snout through the eye and along the flank, and the tail fin enlarged into a rounded paddle marked in dark red or black with a pale margin. In the shade of the overhangs it uses, the tail fin is often the only part that shows clearly, and it is the character most records rest on.
It occupies crevices, the undersides of rubble slabs and the mouths of small caves, holding position a few centimetres off the roof rather than resting on it, and orienting to whichever surface is nearest. Pairs are usual. Like others in the genus it takes parasites and dead tissue from other fish, and small fish approach and hold still beside it, though the cleaning is occasional rather than the whole of the diet, which is mostly small crustaceans taken from the water and the surrounding rock.
Males carry the eggs on the underside of the trunk. Recorded from the Philippines and Indonesia into the western Pacific, from a few metres to about 30 m. It is easily confused with the bluestripe pipefish where the two overlap; that species is blue-striped on a darker body and holds more open positions, while this one stays inside the shade.
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.