BarracudasSphyraenidae

The question people ask about barracudas has a dull answer, so here it is first. A barracuda hanging three meters off and watching you has no interest in you whatever. Recorded bites are rare, and almost all of them fall into the same two boxes: bad visibility, or something bright on a hand or a wrist near a speared fish. This is an animal built to commit to a flash of silver inside a fraction of a second without checking what it belongs to, and a watch catches light the same way a sardine does.

Everything else about the fish follows from that one movement. The body is a straight tube of pale muscle with the fins pushed out to the ends of it, a shape that accelerates hard and turns badly, so a barracuda does not run prey down. It positions itself, holds still, and crosses the last few meters in one go. The eye is large and the hunt is entirely visual, which is why clear open water suits it and why murky water is where the mistakes happen.

The mouth is worth studying while one holds still in front of you. The lower jaw juts past the upper, and the teeth come in two sizes: small ones for holding, and long flattened blades set so that each drops into a socket in the opposing jaw, letting the mouth close flush. Prey too large to swallow is cut in half, and the second half collected afterward.

There are two barracudas to meet here and they look like different animals. Small species and young fish travel in schools, sometimes packing into a slowly turning column that sits over the same corner all day. The large ones live alone, and the largest is the great barracuda, up to two meters of it, hanging motionless in midwater over a drop-off.

Seven species are listed for this sea.