---
title: Blacktip Mojarra (Gerres oyena)
scientific_name: Gerres oyena
common_name: Blacktip Mojarra
taxon: Mojarra
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-13T09:15:19.410Z
updated: 2026-08-22T15:49:12.394Z
tags: Blacktip Mojarra, Gerres oyena, Mojarra, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/mojarra/blacktip-mojarra
---

# Blacktip Mojarra (*Gerres oyena*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Mojarra (*Gerreidae*)
- **Size:** up to 30 cm
- **Depth:** 1-20 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Shallow sand, lagoons and mangrove edges
- **Reproduction:** Egg layer
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- black tip on the dorsal fin
- silver, smaller and slimmer than the other mojarras here
- shallow lagoons, sand flats and mangrove edges, often in small schools
- up to 30 cm

This family is built for estuaries, and this sea has none.

Mojarras across the world are fish of river mouths and brackish lagoons. They tolerate a wide range of salinity, they feed on the invertebrates of soft muddy bottom, and in most tropical regions they are among the first fish you meet where fresh water meets salt. The Red Sea has no rivers at all. Nothing flows in; it loses more water to evaporation than it receives, which is why it is saltier than the open ocean.

So the family lives here without the habitat it is designed around, and the substitutes are the shallow sheltered places that behave a little like estuaries without being fed by any river: lagoons behind the reef, sand flats, the edges of mangrove stands, khors and sheltered bays where the water sits warm and still.

This is the one you are most likely to meet in them, small for the family and often in loose schools over shallow sand, with a black tip on the dorsal fin that separates it from its relatives at a glance.

It is a good reminder that a species list tells you about the coast as much as about the fish.

## Also known as

- **English:** common silver-biddy, Blacktip Silver Biddy, slenderspine mojarra
- **Arabic:** فضي الجسم أسود الطرف, فضي الجسم جزيرة دارنلي, فضي الجسم طويل الذيل
- **Hebrew:** שרבב נובר
- **French:** Blanche à dorsale noire, Blanche commune, Breton blanc
- **Italian:** Gerreide comune
- **German:** Schwarzspitzen-Silberling
- **Spanish:** Mojarra Plateada de Punta Negra, Mojarra Común
- **Portuguese:** Mojarra-do-Kiribati
- **Czech:** ostnušíček štíhlý
- **Japanese:** ミナミクロサギ, Minamikurosagi
- **Chinese:** 奥奈银鲈, 奧奈銀鱸, 奧奈鑽嘴魚
- **Russian:** Полосатая мохарра
- **KO:** 남방게레치
- **TH:** ปลาดอกหมากเรียว

## Scientific synonyms

- *Cichla argyrea* Forster, 1801
- *Diapterus kapas* (Bleeker, 1851)
- *Diapterus oyena* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Gerreomorpha rostrata* Alleyne & MacLeay, 1877
- *Gerres argyreus* (Forster, 1801)
- *Gerres australis* Castelnau, 1875
- *Gerres carinatus* Alleyne & MacLeay, 1877
- *Gerres kapas* Bleeker, 1851
- *Gerres oynea* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Gerres socotranus* Steindachner, 1902
- *Gerres splendens* De Vis, 1884
- *Gerres vaigiensis* Quoy & Gaimard, 1824
- *Labrus oeyena* Forsskål, 1775
- *Labrus oyena* Forsskål, 1775
- *Labrus öyena* Forsskål, 1775
- *Smaris oyena* (Forsskål, 1775)
- *Xystaema kapas* (Bleeker, 1851)
- *Xystaema oyena* (Forsskål, 1775)

## Range

Djibouti, East Africa, Federal Republic of Somalia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Red Sea, Republic of Mauritius, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/mojarra/blacktip-mojarra)*
*Updated: August 22, 2026*