The rabbitfish that schools. Where the reef species move in pairs, this one gathers in fast silver schools that sweep across open bottom and lagoon, cropping algae as they go and rarely stopping.
That difference is worth knowing because it changes what you are looking at: a lone rabbitfish beside coral is one of the paired species, and a school of a hundred moving over sand is this one. It is also the rabbitfish most often caught for food across the region, precisely because it can be netted in numbers.
Every spine on it is venomous - thirteen in the dorsal fin, seven in the anal, four in the pelvics, all grooved and connected to venom glands. The fish is harmless in the water and dangerous in a net, which is the pattern for the whole family.
Like its squaretail relative it went north through the Suez Canal (🇪🇬 Egypt), and it is now established in the eastern Mediterranean, where the two together have stripped algal forests from long stretches of coast.
The species. Siganus argenteus (Quoy & Gaimard 1825) - silvery. ETYFish
- silver-blue body with fine yellow lines, deeply forked tail
- no bold spots or blotches
- in fast-moving schools, unlike the paired reef rabbitfishes
- length up to 40 cm
