The razorfish with no hinge: its terminal spine is fixed in line with the body.
To about 14 cm, flattened to the thickness of a blade, enclosed in transparent bony plates, with a long tube snout and a brown-red stripe running from the snout to the rear end, and carried nose-down like the razorfish Aeoliscus strigatus. One character separates the two and it is at the tail end: the long terminal spine is hinged and movable in Aeoliscus and rigid, fixed in line with the body, in Centriscus. In the water this is the difference between a spine that can be seen to flex as the fish turns and one that cannot; a photograph of the rear end settles it. The stripe is generally paler and less sharply defined here, which is suggestive rather than decisive. Records of Aeoliscus strigatus from the region far outnumber records of this fish, and some proportion of them are probably this fish.
Sand and mud bottoms of sheltered inlets and bays, among branching corals, sea whip gardens and black coral bushes, mostly shallower than about 15 m though recorded much deeper. Schools hang head-down and hold the angle regardless of current, sculling with small fins and turning as a unit so the thin edge stays presented. Juveniles occur in surface water and gather along beach edges in quiet bays. Feeding is by drawing small crustaceans through the tube snout.
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.