Yellow body crossed by narrow red bands, on deeper sand slopes than the banded pipefish.
To about 16 cm, the body pale yellow crossed by narrow red-brown bands, with a red caudal fin edged in white. The banded pipefish, Dunckerocampus dactyliophorus, has the same shape and a similar paddle of a tail but is ringed black and cream, and the two are separable at several metres. The other possible confusion is Dunckerocampus multiannulatus, which carries many more and much narrower rings, but that is an Indian Ocean and Red Sea fish and is not expected on these coasts.
Sand and silt slopes with scattered rubble, generally deeper than the banded pipefish and most often between about 15 and 40 m. Pairs are usual, and a pair tends to stay within a metre or two of a hole, a bottle or a piece of structure it can drop into. Males carry the eggs on the underside of the tail rather than in a sealed pouch. The range is centred on Indonesia and the Philippines and thins quickly beyond them, so it is a normal find on Indonesian and Philippine muck slopes and an unusual one elsewhere.
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.