---
title: Silver Pearlfish (Encheliophis homei)
scientific_name: Encheliophis homei
common_name: Silver Pearlfish
taxon: Pearlfish
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-11-05T23:03:31.085Z
updated: 2026-08-12T13:12:48.501Z
tags: Silver Pearlfish, Encheliophis homei, Pearlfish, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/pearlfish/silver-pearlfish
---

# Silver Pearlfish (*Encheliophis homei*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Pearlfish (*Carapidae*)
- **Size:** up to 19 cm
- **Depth:** 1-30 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Rare
- **Habitat:** Inside sea cucumbers by day, out over sand at night
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- slim translucent eel-shaped fish with no scales and no pelvic fins
- tapers to a point with no tail fin worth the name
- seen as a head protruding from the rear end of a sea cucumber
- length up to 19 cm

A slim translucent fish shaped like a ribbon, tapering to a point, with no scales, no pelvic fins and effectively no tail. Everything about the body is built for fitting into a space that was not meant for it.

It lives inside a sea cucumber. The fish finds a host by smell, waits at the rear opening, and enters tail-first through the anus in a single quick reverse, sometimes taking several attempts. Once inside it occupies the body cavity or the respiratory trees, and by day that is where it stays - which is why the usual sighting is a fish head sticking out of a cucumber.

At night it comes out to hunt small crustaceans over the sand and returns before dawn, often to a different individual. Some relatives in the family are true parasites and eat the host's gonads; this one appears to take shelter only, though the distinction is thin when your bedroom is somebody's respiratory system.

The host is not defenseless. Sea cucumbers can eject sticky tubules or contract violently to expel a lodger, and pearlfish are occasionally found dead inside cucumbers that won the argument.

## Also known as

- **English:** silver pearlfish, Silvery Pearlfish
- **French:** Aurin argenté
- **Portuguese:** Peixe-perola-do-Indo-Pacífico
- **Czech:** jehlička stříbřitá
- **Japanese:** テナガカクレウオ, Tenaga-kakureuo, Tenagakakureuo
- **Chinese:** 荷姆氏細隱魚, 荷姆氏隱魚, 長胸細潛魚

## Scientific synonyms

- *Carapus homei* (Richardson, 1846)
- *Carapus neglectus* (Peters, 1855)
- *Echeliophis homei* (Richardson, 1846)
- *Fierasfer affinis* Günther, 1862
- *Fierasfer brandesu* (Bleeker, 1851)
- *Fierasfer homei* (Richardson, 1846)
- *Fierasfer neglectum* Peters, 1855
- *Oxybeles brandesii* Bleeker, 1851
- *Oxybeles homei* Richardson, 1846
- *Oxybelus brandesii* Bleeker, 1851

## Range

Indian Ocean, Madagascar, Mozambique, Seychelles, Tanzania

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/pearlfish/silver-pearlfish)*
*Updated: August 12, 2026*