---
title: Squaretail Mullet (Ellochelon vaigiensis)
scientific_name: Ellochelon vaigiensis
common_name: Squaretail Mullet
taxon: Mullets
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-10-26T22:05:55.683Z
updated: 2026-09-03T22:03:53.999Z
tags: Squaretail Mullet, Ellochelon vaigiensis, Mullets, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/mullets/squaretail-mullet
---

# Squaretail Mullet (*Ellochelon vaigiensis*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Mullets (*Mugilidae*)
- **Size:** up to 63 cm
- **Depth:** 0-5 m
- **Diet:** Detritivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Habitat:** Lagoons, reef flats, estuaries and coastal creeks, entering fresh water
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Poisonous
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- olive-brown above, silvery flanks, with about six brown stripes running the length of the side
- yellow tail, cut off square, and yellowish fins with dusky edges
- pectoral fin black on its upper half and yellow below
- in schools over sand and among mangroves, not on the reef
- up to 63 cm

This fish has a gizzard. Mullets swallow mouthfuls of the surface layer of the bottom - sediment, algal film, diatoms, whatever is bound up in it - and grind the load in a thick muscular stomach that works the way a bird's does, then run it through an intestine several times the length of their own body. It is the digestive system of a pigeon, in a fish.

That is why they are where they are. A mullet does not need prey, cover or coral; it needs soft bottom and shallow water, so schools of them work lagoons, reef flats, estuaries and coastal creeks, and this species will go 10 km up a river when it feels like it. Juveniles turn up in mangrove channels and flooded rice fields.

It is the only species in its genus. Ellochelon holds this fish and nothing else, so every squaretail mullet in the world is the same animal, from East Africa to the Tuamotus.

Olive-brown above and silvery on the flanks, with about six brown stripes formed by marks running along the scale rows, a yellow tail cut off square at the end, and a pectoral fin that is black on the upper half and yellow below. It reaches 63 cm (25 in), which is large for a mullet.

One note if anyone is thinking of eating one: there are reports of ciguatera poisoning from this species.

## Also known as

- **English:** Squaretail Mullet, Diamond Scale Mullet, Large Scale Mullet
- **Arabic:** بوري أصفر الذيل, بوري ماسي القشور, بوري مربع الذيل
- **French:** Mulet à queue carrée, Mulet carrelé, Mulet mopiro
- **Italian:** Cefalo scaglie a diamante
- **Spanish:** Lisa de cola cuadrada
- **Portuguese:** Tainha-de-laguna-do-Indo-Pacífico, Tainha-diamante
- **Czech:** cípal širokoocasý
- **Japanese:** オニボラ, Onibora, ムナグロボラ
- **Chinese:** 黃鯔
- **DA:** Halekantet multe
- **KO:** 넓적꼬리숭어, 넙적꼬리숭어
- **TAH:** nape
- **TH:** ปลากระบอกท่อนใต้, ปลากระบอกหูดำ

## Scientific synonyms

- *Chelon vaigiensis* (Quoy & Gaimard, 1825)
- *Liza vaigensis* (Quoy & Gaimard, 1825)
- *Liza vaigiensis* (Quoy & Gaimard, 1825)
- *Mugil delicatus* Jouan, 1878
- *Mugil macrolepidotus* Rüppell, 1830
- *Mugil melanochir* Valenciennes, 1836
- *Mugil occidentalis* Castelnau, 1873
- *Mugil rossii* Bleeker, 1854
- *Mugil tegobuan* Montrouzier, 1857
- *Mugil vaigiensis* Quoy & Gaimard, 1825
- *Mugil ventricosus* Castelnau, 1875
- *Mugil waigiensis* Quoy & Gaimard, 1825

## Range

Mozambique

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/mullets/squaretail-mullet)*
*Updated: September 3, 2026*