A silver bar of muscle hanging motionless in mid-water, usually 1 to 1.4 m (3 to 4.5 ft) and up to 2 m (6.5 ft), blue-gray above and chalk white below, with a scatter of irregular black blotches low on the flank and a lower jaw that juts past the upper. The mouth does not close over the teeth, which is why a barracuda looks like it is deciding something.
It hunts by ambush from a standing start. The body is built almost entirely for acceleration rather than cruising, and a strike run reaches around 40 km/h (25 mph) over a few body lengths - fast enough that a barracuda can cut a fish in half by hitting it. It then turns and eats the pieces.
The reputation for following divers is earned and harmless: a large barracuda will hold station a few meters away for an entire dive, watching. Bites are vanishingly rare and share one detail - something bright and metallic. A watch, a dangling gauge or a knife blade flashing in murky water reads as a flashing fish, and the strike is committed before the mistake is apparent.
The real risk from this species is on a plate. Large individuals accumulate ciguatoxin from the reef food chain, and the toxin survives cooking, freezing and drying; barracuda over a few kilos are a leading cause of ciguatera poisoning worldwide. Juveniles school in mangroves and shallow seagrass, and the huge slow-turning schools of smaller barracuda that divers photograph are a different species from the solitary giants.
The species. Sphyraena barracuda (Edwards 1771) - A local name for this fish. ETYFish
- long silver body with a lower jaw jutting past the upper
- irregular black blotches low on the flank
- teeth visible with the mouth closed
- hangs motionless in mid-water, often following divers
