---
title: Rock Pipefish (Phoxocampus belcheri)
scientific_name: Phoxocampus belcheri
common_name: Rock Pipefish
taxon: Pipefishes
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-10-30T09:34:44.050Z
updated: 2026-08-15T12:23:07.981Z
tags: Rock Pipefish, Phoxocampus belcheri, Pipefishes, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/pipefishes/rock-pipefish
---

# Rock Pipefish (*Phoxocampus belcheri*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Pipefishes (*Syngnathinae*)
- **Size:** up to 7 cm
- **Depth:** 0-25 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Crevices and undercuts in shallow coral rock
- **Reproduction:** Brooder, Gonochoric
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- small very dark brown to black pipefish, almost unmarked
- pale tail fin with a dark margin, the only bright feature
- deep in a crevice, usually with only part of the body visible
- length up to 7 cm

A short, almost black pipefish living inside cracks in coral rock, seven centimeters (3 in) long and visible only as a section of something dark in a hole.

Where its relatives are pale sticks on open rubble, this one went the other way: dark, small, and permanently inside the reef, where color is irrelevant because there is no light. The only bright thing on it is the tail fin, pale with a dark edge, which is often the single part a torch beam picks out.

It feeds on the tiny crustaceans that live in the same crevices, so it never has to leave.

The male broods on the underside of the tail like the rest of the family. In a crevice-dwelling species that is an advantage: eggs carried in an open strip need clean flowing water, and the same hole that hides the fish keeps the clutch in a steady current.

## Also known as

- **English:** rock pipefish, Black rock pipefish
- **Czech:** jehla Belcherova
- **Japanese:** ボウヨウジ, Boyoji
- **Chinese:** 海龍, 貝氏魚海龍, 贝氏鱼海龙
- **AF:** Klip-pypvis
- **MSA:** Undok-undok batu, Undok-undok

## Scientific synonyms

- *Ichthyocampus belcheri* Kaup, 1856
- *Ichthyocampus nox* Snyder, 1909

## Range

Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania

---

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