A slim silver fish that hovers just off the sand in twos and threes.
To about 25 cm, slim and silver-white with a blue-grey back and, in adults, three faint darker stripes along the flank and a yellow wash on the upper body. Juveniles carry the stripes far more strongly. Several Pentapodus species share this habitat and are separated by the stripe pattern and tail markings, which usually means a photograph.
It hovers half a metre above sand and rubble, alone or in small groups, dropping to take small invertebrates and rising again. It is a constant background fish on muck sites — present on nearly every dive, rarely the subject of one — and is worth knowing simply so that it is not repeatedly re-identified. Recorded from about 2 to 30 m.
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.