---
title: Blackmargin Barracuda (Sphyraena qenie)
scientific_name: Sphyraena qenie
common_name: Blackmargin Barracuda
taxon: Barracudas
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-01T15:14:16.807Z
updated: 2026-08-13T19:23:11.144Z
tags: Blackmargin Barracuda, Sphyraena qenie, Barracudas, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/barracudas/blackmargin-barracuda
---

# Blackmargin Barracuda (*Sphyraena qenie*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Barracudas (*Sphyraenidae*)
- **Size:** up to 170 cm
- **Depth:** 0-100 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Current-swept drop-offs and offshore reefs
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Dangerous, Poisonous
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- silver with about twenty faint dark bars, and a dark trailing edge on the tail
- tail lobes with white tips
- lower jaw projecting, teeth visible at rest
- hundreds of fish in a slowly rotating column or tornado by day
- length up to 170 cm

The barracuda that forms the tornado. Hundreds of fish stack into a slowly rotating column over a current-swept corner and stay there through the day, packed and almost motionless, letting the water do the work.

The school is not hunting. Barracuda hunt alone or in small groups at dawn and dusk, and a school this size is a defensive arrangement against the sharks and big jacks that patrol the same corners. It is also site-loyal: the same headlands and offshore pinnacles hold a column year after year, which is why dive guides can promise them.

Telling it from the Great Barracuda matters and is easy once you know: this species has a dark trailing edge on the tail and white tips on the lobes, and it schools; the great barracuda hangs alone under a boat and has scattered black blotches on the flank.

It reaches 170 cm (5.6 ft). Nothing about it is a threat to a diver - the famous attacks involve speared fish and shiny objects at the surface - but large individuals in some regions carry ciguatoxins, which is what the flag on this card means. Old, big barracuda from anywhere with a history of it are not a fish to eat.

## Also known as

- **English:** blackfin barracuda, Blacktail barracuda, Chevron barracuda
- **Arabic:** باراكودا الزعنفة السوداء
- **Hebrew:** אספירנה שחורת-סנפירים
- **French:** Barracuda à nageoires noires
- **German:** Dunkelflossen-Barrakuda
- **Portuguese:** Barracuda-crioula
- **Dutch:** Donkervinbarracuda
- **Czech:** soltýn modropruhý
- **Japanese:** タツカマス, Tatsukamasu
- **Chinese:** 巴拉庫答, 暗鰭金梭魚, 暗鰭魣
- **DA:** Sortfinnet barracuda
- **FIJ:** toutou
- **SMO:** Sapatu
- **TGL:** Balyos

## Scientific synonyms

- *Sphyraena genie* Klunzinger, 1870
- *Sphyraena nigripinnis* Temminck & Schlegel, 1843
- *Sphyraena tessera* Smith, 1956

## Range

Federal Republic of Somalia, Mozambique, Red Sea, Seychelles, South Africa

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/barracudas/blackmargin-barracuda)*
*Updated: August 13, 2026*