---
title: Schultz's Pipefish (Corythoichthys schultzi)
scientific_name: Corythoichthys schultzi
common_name: Schultz's Pipefish
taxon: Pipefishes
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2024-10-29T21:47:31.229Z
updated: 2026-08-15T12:16:00.477Z
tags: Schultz's Pipefish, Corythoichthys schultzi, Pipefishes, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/pipefishes/schultzs-pipefish
---

# Schultz's Pipefish (*Corythoichthys schultzi*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Pipefishes (*Syngnathinae*)
- **Size:** up to 16 cm
- **Depth:** 2-30 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Coral rubble and sand patches between coral heads
- **Reproduction:** Brooder, Gonochoric
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- pale body with red-brown bars and fine dark speckling
- orange-red markings on the snout and around the eye
- almost always in a pair, working the same patch of rubble
- length up to 16 cm

The pipefish a diver here actually sees: sixteen centimeters (6 in) of pale, barred fish moving slowly over rubble between coral heads, usually with a second one nearby.

The second one is the point. These fish are monogamous, and the pair meets every morning - the two swim together, align side by side and greet, then separate to feed and repeat it the next day. The ritual keeps the pair bond alive through a breeding season in which the female must deliver eggs to a male whose brood is ready at exactly the right time, and a female who loses her partner needs weeks to establish another.

He carries the eggs on the underside of his tail, in a strip rather than a closed pouch, and they hatch as miniature adults with no larval drift at all.

It hunts copepods one by one, sucked in through a snout that ends in a mouth barely wider than the animals it eats. Watch one for a minute and the head will flick a dozen times; each flick is a meal.

## Also known as

- **English:** gilded pipefish, Guilded Pipefish, Schultz's pipefish
- **Arabic:** Masas Ramli
- **Hebrew:** אבובית ארוכת-חדק
- **French:** Syngnathe de Schultz, Poisson-pipe annelé, Poisson-pipe
- **Italian:** Pesce ago di Schultz, Pesce Ago
- **German:** Schultz' Seenadel, Schultz's Seenadel
- **Dutch:** Schultz zeenaald
- **Czech:** jehla Schultzova
- **Japanese:** クチナガイシヨウジ, Kuchinaga-ishi-yôji, Kuchinagaishiyoji
- **Chinese:** 史氏冠海龍, 史氏冠海龙, 史氏海龍
- **FI:** Morseneula
- **FIJ:** Ose ni Waitui

## Range

Comoros, Indian Ocean, Red Sea, Republic of Mauritius, Seychelles

---

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