---
title: Shorttailed Pipefish (Trachyrhamphus bicoarctatus)
scientific_name: Trachyrhamphus bicoarctatus
common_name: Shorttailed Pipefish
taxon: Pipefishes
conservation_status: VU - Vulnerable
published: 2024-10-30T14:57:41.095Z
updated: 2026-08-15T12:51:57.247Z
tags: Shorttailed Pipefish, Trachyrhamphus bicoarctatus, Pipefishes, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/bony-fishes/pipefishes/shorttailed-pipefish
---

# Shorttailed Pipefish (*Trachyrhamphus bicoarctatus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Pipefishes (*Syngnathinae*)
- **Size:** up to 40 cm
- **Depth:** 1-42 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Open sand and silty flats away from reef
- **Reproduction:** Brooder, Gonochoric
- **Conservation status:** VU - Vulnerable

## How to recognise it

- large stiff pipefish, up to 40 cm, far bigger than the reef species
- gray-brown, sometimes with pale bands, body distinctly angular in cross section
- stands with the head raised off the bottom, swaying slightly
- length up to 40 cm

Forty centimeters (16 in) of stiff gray pipefish standing on an open sand flat with its head raised, swaying gently - the largest pipefish here, and the one that behaves least like a fish.

It does not hide in anything. On bare sand there is nothing to hide in, so the strategy is to be a piece of debris standing on end: a dead stick, a bit of rope, a shed frond. The sway matches the surge, which is the detail that sells it, and divers cross these flats without registering a single one.

The body is a chain of bony rings, angular rather than round, and it swims with the dorsal fin alone - slowly, and only when it has to.

Males brood the eggs on the underside of the tail. It is the reason the whole group is fished for the traditional medicine trade alongside seahorses: a slow, defenseless animal with a low reproductive rate is easy to collect and slow to replace.

## Also known as

- **English:** double-ended pipefish, Bentstick Pipefish, Bend Stick Pipefish
- **Hebrew:** זמורן כהה
- **French:** Syngnathe à deux points, Syngnathe courbé
- **Italian:** Pesce ago a due anelli
- **German:** Schwanzlose Seenadel
- **Dutch:** Staartloze Zeenaald
- **Czech:** jehla tenká
- **Japanese:** ワカヨウジ, Wakayoji
- **Chinese:** 海龍, 短吻粗吻海龍, 短尾粗吻海龍
- **Russian:** Йозия

## Scientific synonyms

- *Ichthyocampus annulatus* MacLeay, 1878
- *Ichthyocampus maculatus* Alleyne & MacLeay, 1877
- *Syngnathus bicoarctatus* Bleeker, 1857
- *Syngnathus brevicaudus* Castelnau, 1875
- *Syngnathus zanzibarensis* Günther, 1867
- *Trachyramphus bicoarctata* (Bleeker, 1857)
- *Trachyramphus bicoarctatus* (Bleeker, 1857)
- *Trachyrhamphus bioarctatus* (Bleeker, 1857)
- *Yozia bicoarctata* (Bleeker, 1857)
- *Yozia bicoarctata erythraeensis* Dollfus & Petit, 1938
- *Yozia bicoarctata melanesiae* Fowler, 1945
- *Yozia bioarctata* (Bleeker, 1857)
- *Yozia compitalis* Whitley, 1950
- *Yozia compitalis samaraiensis* Kähsbauer, 1970
- *Yozia wakanourae* Jordan & Snyder, 1901
- *Ypzia bicoarctata* (Bleeker, 1857)

## Range

Indian Ocean, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Red Sea, Republic of Mauritius, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania

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