---
title: Smooth Cornetfish (Fistularia commersoni)
scientific_name: Fistularia commersoni
common_name: Smooth Cornetfish
taxon: Cornetfishes
published: 2023-12-29T08:19:26.799Z
updated: 2026-08-23T19:50:38.360Z
tags: Smooth Cornetfish, Fistularia commersoni, Cornetfishes, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/cornetfishes/smooth-cornetfish
---

# Smooth Cornetfish (*Fistularia commersoni*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Cornetfishes (*Fistulariidae*)
- **Size:** up to 1.6 m
- **Depth:** 1-130 m
- **Diet:** Piscivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Over reef, seagrass and sand, hanging motionless in mid-water
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Poisonous

## How to recognise it

- extremely long thin body ending in a tube-shaped snout
- a whip-like filament trailing from the middle of the tail
- hangs motionless and almost invisible head-down over the bottom
- length up to 1.6 m

A meter and a half of fish and almost no fish at all: a body the thickness of a broom handle ending in a long tube of a snout, with a whip-like filament trailing from the tail. Seen head-on it disappears entirely, which is the point.

It feeds by suction. The snout is a pipette - the mouth at the tip opens suddenly and the prey is pulled up the tube by the inrush of water, so the fish never has to accelerate, only to get close. Getting close is done by stalking: it drifts in behind a parrotfish or a goatfish, using the larger animal as a moving screen, then slides out at the last moment.

It also hangs vertically over seagrass and sand, motionless, aligned with whatever is behind it. A cornetfish holding station beside a boat line or a soft coral is doing exactly what a stick insect does.

The Mediterranean owes it a chapter. This species came through the Suez Canal, was first recorded off Israel in 2000, and spread the length of the sea to Spain within a decade - one of the fastest documented invasions by any marine fish, and a large one at that. What it does to the fish communities it arrives in is still being counted.

## Also known as

- **English:** bluespotted cornetfish, cornetfish, reef cornetfish
- **Arabic:** Bokia Raktaa, Bambo, Gaeta
- **Hebrew:** חלילון חלק
- **French:** Cornette à taches bleues, Poisson-flûte Lisse, Trompette
- **German:** Flötenfisch
- **Spanish:** corneta pintada, Pez Corneta de Arrecife, Pez Corneta
- **Greek:** Φλογέρα
- **Turkish:** comak baligi
- **Portuguese:** Corneta Pintada
- **Japanese:** アオヤガラ, Aka-yagara, Aoyagara
- **Chinese:** 剃仔, 土管, 康氏馬鞭魚
- **Russian:** Голубонятнистая свистулька
- **AF:** Gladde Fluitbek
- **DA:** Commersons Tobakspibefisk
- **FIJ:** Baba
- **KO:** 홍대치
- **MSA:** Serunai Bintik Biru, Jenjulung, Jolong-jolong
- **SIN:** Malava
- **SMO:** Taotao, Taoto-ama
- **SOM:** Bustooni
- **TAH:** 'aupapa
- **TAM:** Kovinchi
- **TGL:** Droal, Trompeta

## Scientific synonyms

- *Fistularia comerson* Rüppell, 1838
- *Fistularia commersoni* Rüppell, 1838
- *Fistularia depressa* Günther, 1880
- *Fistularis commersoni* Rüppell, 1838

## Range

Federal Republic of Somalia, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, New Zealand, Red Sea, Republic of Mauritius, Seychelles, South Africa

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/cornetfishes/smooth-cornetfish)*
*Updated: August 23, 2026*