A small schooling barracuda that hangs in tight groups over temperate and subtropical reef.
To about 30 cm, though FishBase gives 55. Small, greenish above and silvery below, elongate and near-cylindrical, with two indistinct stripes along the side, the lower one joining the lateral line behind the second dorsal fin and running to the tail base. Some fish show a yellow tail and a yellow band along the middle. The name refers to what it lacks: the pointed jaw prominence the other barracuda have.
This entry has to be provisional. The species boundary with the yellowtail barracuda is unresolved — one revision treats them as the same fish, other workers keep them apart — and FishBase says the true range of this species is uncertain for exactly that reason. The 83 per cent disagreement between the two published maximum sizes is almost certainly the same problem. Where the two are kept separate, this fish has a taller spiny dorsal fin relative to the soft dorsal.
In bays, estuaries and on coastal and outer reefs over seagrass and rock, hunting small fish. Juveniles school over seagrass.
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.