---
title: Pilot fish (Naucrates ductor)
scientific_name: Naucrates ductor
common_name: Pilot fish
taxon: Jacks, Amberjacks, Pompanos
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-11T22:39:45.085Z
updated: 2026-08-12T10:21:44.268Z
tags: Pilot fish, Naucrates ductor, Jacks, Amberjacks, Pompanos, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/jacks-amberjacks-pompanos/pilot-fish
---

# Pilot fish (*Naucrates ductor*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Jacks, Amberjacks, Pompanos (*Carangidae*)
- **Size:** up to 70 cm
- **Depth:** 0-300 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Open water, alongside sharks, rays, turtles and drifting objects
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- slim silver-white fish crossed by five or six broad dark vertical bands
- swims immediately ahead of or beside a larger animal, matching its speed exactly
- keeps station in the pressure wave at the host's snout
- length up to 70 cm

A slim banded fish that is almost never seen alone: it travels at the snout or flank of a shark, a ray, a turtle or a drifting log, matching every turn, and if the host leaves it goes with it.

The position is physics, not courage. A large swimming animal pushes a pressure wave ahead of it, and a fish riding that wave is carried along at a fraction of the effort - the same trick a cyclist uses behind a truck. That is the main payment; the scraps from the host's meals and the parasites picked off its skin are a bonus rather than the point.

What the host gets is debated and probably very little. Sharks tolerate the escort rather than benefit from it, and pilot fish do not appear to clean enough to earn their keep.

Juveniles do the same thing with jellyfish and floating weed, which is where the young of a great many open-ocean fish spend their first months: a drifting object is the only structure in a habitat that otherwise has none. Old accounts of pilot fish guiding ships across oceans describe exactly this, with the hull as the host.

## Also known as

- **English:** pilotfish, pilot-fish, Rudderfish
- **Arabic:** سمك الزامور, سمك الطيار
- **Hebrew:** נווט חגור
- **French:** fanfre, Pilote, poisson pilote
- **Italian:** pesce pilota, Fanfano
- **German:** Lotsenfisch
- **Spanish:** pez piloto, Pez Simón, Romero
- **Greek:** Gofari, Κολαούζος, Πιλότος
- **Turkish:** Kilavuz baligi, Malta palamudu, Malta palamutu
- **Portuguese:** Peixe-piloto, Piloto
- **Dutch:** Loodsmannetje
- **Swedish:** lotsfisk
- **Polish:** Ryba pilot, przynawek retman, Pilot
- **Czech:** lodivod mořský
- **Japanese:** ブリモドキ, Burimodoki
- **Chinese:** 舟鰤
- **Ukrainian:** Лоцман переслідувач, Риба-лоцман
- **Russian:** Рыба лоцман, Лоцман, Рыба-лоцман
- **AF:** Loodsvis
- **CA:** Peix pilot
- **DA:** Lodsfisk
- **FI:** Luotsikala
- **MLT:** Fanfru
- **NNO:** losfisk
- **NO:** losfisk
- **RO:** Peste pilot
- **SL:** Pilot
- **SQI:** Peshk pilot
- **SR:** Fanfan, Pratibrod, Skusac
- **TAH:** 'uri
- **TGL:** Talakitok

## Scientific synonyms

- *Gasterosteus ductor* Linnaeus, 1758
- *Hemitripteronotus quinquemaculatus* Lacepède, 1801
- *Hemitripteronotus quinque-maculatus* Lacepède, 1801
- *Nauclerus abreviatus* Valenciennes, 1833
- *Nauclerus annularis* Valenciennes, 1833
- *Nauclerus brachycentrus* Valenciennes, 1833
- *Nauclerus compressus* Valenciennes, 1833
- *Nauclerus leucurus* Valenciennes, 1833
- *Nauclerus triacanthus* Valenciennes, 1833
- *Naucrates angeli* Whitley, 1931
- *Naucrates cyanophrys* Swainson, 1839
- *Naucrates fanfarus* Rafinesque, 1810
- *Naucrates indicus* Lesson, 1831
- *Naucrates noveboracensis* Cuvier, 1832
- *Naucrates polysarcus* Fowler, 1905
- *Naucrates serratus* Swainson, 1839
- *Scomber ductor*
- *Seriola dussumieri* Valenciennes, 1833
- *Seriola succincta* Valenciennes, 1833
- *Seriola succinta* Valenciennes, 1833
- *Thynnus pompilus* Gronow, 1854

## Range

Belgium, Black Sea, Canada, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, FAO fishing area 67, Federal Republic of Somalia, France, Greece, Gulf of Mexico, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Madagascar, Mediterranean Sea - Eastern Basin, Mozambique, New Zealand, North Atlantic Ocean, North East Pacific, North Pacific Ocean, Red Sea, Republic of Mauritius, Seychelles, South Africa, Sweden, Tanzania, The Coastal Waters of Southeast Alaska and British Columbia

---

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