---
title: Blackchest Pipefish (Corythoichthys nigripectus)
scientific_name: Corythoichthys nigripectus
common_name: Blackchest Pipefish
taxon: Pipefishes
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-10-30T09:37:55.012Z
updated: 2026-08-15T11:14:54.388Z
tags: Blackchest Pipefish, Corythoichthys nigripectus, Pipefishes, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/pipefishes/blackchest-pipefish
---

# Blackchest Pipefish (*Corythoichthys nigripectus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Pipefishes (*Syngnathinae*)
- **Size:** up to 11 cm
- **Depth:** 5-30 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Rubble and coral on reef slopes
- **Reproduction:** Brooder, Gonochoric
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- slender pale body with fine dark bars and a dark patch on the chest
- snout marked with a network of fine lines, different on every animal
- usually in a pair, moving over rubble
- length up to 11 cm

A slim pale pipefish with a dark chest, working rubble on a reef slope, eleven centimeters (4.5 in) long and never in a hurry.

The snout carries a net of fine lines, and in this genus that pattern is different on every individual - stable over time and unique, so researchers photograph the head and use it to tell animals apart the way manta rays are told apart by their bellies. Individuals stay on the same few square meters for months, which is what makes that possible.

They pair up and stay paired. The two fish greet each other every morning, feed within a meter of each other, and a female transfers eggs only to her own partner - a monogamy that is unusual among fish and thoroughly documented in this family.

It eats tiny crustaceans, sucked in one at a time through a snout that works as a pipette. There are no teeth and no jaws to speak of: the mouth at the end of the tube opens, the water rushes in, and the copepod goes with it.

## Also known as

- **English:** Black-breasted Pipefish, Red Sea Pipefish
- **French:** Syngnathe à poitrine noire
- **Italian:** Pesce ago dal petto nero
- **German:** Schwarzbrust-Seenadel
- **Czech:** jehla oranžová
- **Chinese:** 黑胸冠海龍, 黑胸冠海龙
- **FI:** Mustarintaneula

## Range

Red Sea

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/pipefishes/blackchest-pipefish)*
*Updated: August 15, 2026*