---
title: Snubnose Pompano (Trachinotus blochii)
scientific_name: Trachinotus blochii
common_name: Snubnose Pompano
taxon: Jacks, Amberjacks, Pompanos
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-12T11:42:43.782Z
updated: 2026-08-13T19:30:56.119Z
tags: Snubnose Pompano, Trachinotus blochii, Jacks, Amberjacks, Pompanos, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/jacks-amberjacks-pompanos/snubnose-pompano
---

# Snubnose Pompano (*Trachinotus blochii*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Jacks, Amberjacks, Pompanos (*Carangidae*)
- **Size:** up to 110 cm
- **Weight:** 3.4 Kg
- **Depth:** 1-20 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Shallow sand flats and surf zones, rarely on the reef itself
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Poisonous
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- deep silver body, blunt rounded snout with no visible teeth
- yellow tinge on the belly and the lower fins
- sickle-shaped fins, tail deeply forked
- usually alone or in twos over open sand
- length up to 110 cm

A deep silver slab with a blunt, oddly gentle face, up to 110 cm (43 in) but usually far smaller. Divers meet it in the least likely place for a big jack: the shallows, over bare sand, sometimes in water barely deep enough to cover it.

The face explains the address. There are no cutting teeth in that mouth. Instead the jaws carry crushing plates in the throat, and the fish makes its living on shellfish - clams, snails, crabs - which it takes off the flats and grinds up. Adults are known to eat their way through beds of bivalves methodically, and the blunt snout is a tool for turning sediment rather than for chasing.

Young fish live in the surf, in water full of sand and bubbles that larger predators avoid, and grow there before moving out. That habit made this species one of the mainstays of tropical mariculture: it grows fast, tolerates crowding and eats pellets, so a good part of the pompano sold across Asia was raised in a cage rather than caught.

On the reef it is a passing shape rather than a resident. Large individuals in some regions have caused ciguatera poisoning, which is what the flag on this card refers to.

## Also known as

- **English:** snubnose pompano, Goldfin Permit, tropical pompano
- **French:** Carangue a plumes, Pompaneau lune
- **Spanish:** Pámpano Lunero, Pámpano Palometa
- **Japanese:** マルコバン, Marukoban

## Scientific synonyms

- *Caesiomorus blochii* Lacepède, 1801
- *Scomber falcatus* Forsskål, 1775
- *Trachinotus blochi* (Lacepède, 1801)
- *Trachinotus falcatus* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Trachinotus fuscus* Cuvier, 1832
- *Trachynotus blochi* (Lacepède, 1801)
- *Trachynotus falcatus* (Forsskål, 1775)

## Range

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

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/jacks-amberjacks-pompanos/snubnose-pompano)*
*Updated: August 13, 2026*