Lies part-buried on open sand and takes small fish from a standing start.
A cylindrical, blunt-snouted fish to about 32 cm, mottled brown and cream with a row of darker blotches along the flank and two or three saddles across the back. It differs from the Synodus lizardfishes on the mouth: Saurida carries bands of small teeth on the palate and the outer teeth remain visible when the jaws are closed, so the head reads as bristled rather than smooth. The pelvic fins are long, and the fish rests propped on them with the front of the body raised.
It lies on open sand, often with the body partly worked into it and only the head and back clear, and waits. Prey is small fish and crustaceans, taken in a single lunge from a standing start; the fish covers the distance and returns to almost the same spot. On black sand a settled animal is easy to walk past, and most sightings begin with the fish moving. Recorded from the shallows to about 130 m across the Indo-Pacific.
For photography the fish’s habit works in the diver’s favour, because it will hold position while a camera is brought in and it does not retreat into anything. The frame most often worth having is from directly in front and low, which puts the teeth and the raised head against clear sand.
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.
