---
title: Bluefin Trevally (Caranx melampygus)
scientific_name: Caranx melampygus
common_name: Bluefin Trevally
taxon: Jacks, Amberjacks, Pompanos
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-11T18:43:17.574Z
updated: 2026-08-12T23:17:35.731Z
tags: Bluefin Trevally, Caranx melampygus, Jacks, Amberjacks, Pompanos, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/jacks-amberjacks-pompanos/bluefin-trevally
---

# Bluefin Trevally (*Caranx melampygus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Jacks, Amberjacks, Pompanos (*Carangidae*)
- **Size:** up to 1.1 m
- **Weight:** 43.5 Kg
- **Depth:** 1-190 m
- **Diet:** Piscivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Reef edges, drop-offs and lagoons, hunting in open water
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Poisonous
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- silver body speckled with small black spots, electric blue fins
- steep forehead and a deeply forked tail
- flushes almost black while hunting, then pales again
- length up to 1.1 m

Silver, speckled black, with fins in a blue so saturated they look artificial. Up to 1.1 m (43 in), and a fish that arrives suddenly, crosses a reef at speed and is gone.

It hunts by following. Bluefin trevally shadow octopus, morays and other bottom hunters, taking the fish that bolt out of holes as the forager works through them, and they will follow a diver for the same reason. The partnership is one-sided but real: the trevally catches more this way than alone, and the forager loses nothing it could have caught.

Color is a hunting tool. The fish flushes dark, almost black, during an attack and pales again afterward within seconds; the change appears to signal intent to other trevally rather than to the prey, and hunting groups coordinate with it.

It is a prized game and food fish, and large individuals carry ciguatera in parts of its range - a common tax on reef predators that live long enough to accumulate it. The blue fins fade almost immediately after death, which is why a fish on ice never looks like the animal in the water.

## Also known as

- **English:** bluefin trevally, Blue-fin Trevally, Blue-finned Trevally
- **Arabic:** Bayad, Dibsy, Girim
- **French:** Carangue Aîle Bleue, Carangue bleue
- **Italian:** Carangide pinne blu
- **German:** Blauflossen-Makrele
- **Spanish:** jurel aleta azul, Jurel de Aleta Azul
- **Portuguese:** Xaréu-de-barbatana-azul
- **Czech:** kranas modroploutvý
- **Japanese:** カスミアジ, Kasumiaji
- **Chinese:** 藍鰭鰺, 黑尻鰺
- **Russian:** Синепёрый каранкс
- **BIS:** Blukarong
- **DA:** Blåfinnet trevalle
- **MAL:** Kuluvel, കുലുവെല്
- **MAR:** शिताप
- **MLG:** Kikao manga
- **MSA:** Kerepoh
- **SW:** Karambazi
- **TGL:** Maliputo, Manitis, Talakitok
- **TH:** ปลากะมงครีบฟ้า

## Scientific synonyms

- *Carangichthys melampygus* (Cuvier, 1833)
- *Carangus melampygus* (Cuvier, 1833)
- *Caranx bixanthopterus* Rüppell, 1836
- *Caranx medusicola* Jordan & Starks, 1895
- *Caranx melampyges* Cuvier, 1833
- *Caranx stellatus* Eydoux & Souleyet, 1850
- *Caranx valenciennei* Castelnau, 1873
- *Carynx melampygus* (Cuvier, 1833)
- *Xurel malampygus* (Cuvier, 1833)

## Range

Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Federal Republic of Somalia, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Red Sea, Republic of Mauritius, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Western Indian Ocean

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/jacks-amberjacks-pompanos/bluefin-trevally)*
*Updated: August 12, 2026*