Kuhlia xenura
Silvery schooling fish found close to shore in Hawaii, comfortable around 25C, uncommon but a steady sight year-round.
Silvery, slightly flattened body around 15 cm long with a forked tail marked by dark diagonal bands, which is the easiest feature to key on underwater. The back often shows a faint olive or grey wash while the belly stays bright white, and it tends to hold in loose groups rather than sitting alone. Look for it hovering in the surge zone close to shore rather than out over deeper reef.
Divers most often find it patrolling shallow, wave-washed shoreline rather than deeper reef, often in small loose groups that hold position in the surge. It's not a fish that reacts dramatically to divers, generally continuing to feed or hold station as you pass. Most logged sightings describe it as uncommon rather than abundant, so don't expect large schools on every dive.
It's one of the few reef fish that regularly tolerates the brackish water where Hawaiian streams meet the sea, giving it a wider habitat range than most inshore reef fish.
No clear seasonal pattern shows up in the sighting data, and with water in the 25.0 to 25.6C range at recorded sightings, it's a year-round resident rather than a seasonal visitor.
Reef neighbours a diver could mistake it for. Use the identification notes above to tell them apart.
Every logged sighting in this dataset comes from Hawaii, United States, making it effectively a Hawaii-only encounter for divers and snorkelers. It turns up at a spread of nearshore sites across the islands rather than concentrating at one or two famous spots, so it's more a case of watching the shallows wherever you're diving in Hawaii.
Mapping where Hawaiian Flagtail is logged…
Sightings are concentrated entirely in Hawaii, United States, spread across a number of nearshore sites rather than one specific hotspot. It's a shallow-water species, so shore dives and snorkel spots along the islands are your best bet.
There's no strong seasonal signal in the data, and it's recorded in water around 25C year-round, so it can be seen on any visit to its Hawaiian habitat.
Look for a silvery, slightly flattened fish about 15 cm long with a forked tail carrying dark diagonal bands. It typically holds in loose groups in shallow, surge-washed water close to shore rather than out on open reef.
They typically reach around 15 cm in length, making them a small to mid-sized reef fish rather than a schooling giant.
No, they pose no danger to divers and simply go about feeding or holding position in the shallows as you pass.
Site and sighting data is aggregated from diver logs, iNaturalist and GBIF. For taxonomy and conservation status:
Sun Perch
2,182 sites
