Macroramphosus gracilis
Uncommon and easy to miss: this needle-nosed fish turns up year-round in La Palma's Canary Islands waters, 12 to 27 C.
Look for a tiny, elongated fish with a body shaped like a compressed needle and a long tubular snout ending in a small downturned mouth. At around 10 cm it is easy to miss against rock and rubble, with a silvery to pale brown body that can look almost translucent in open water. The humped back and pipe-like profile are the real giveaways, since nothing else on these reefs shares that exact silhouette.
Divers tend to spot it hovering in small groups just off the bottom, hanging in mid-water with a slight head-down tilt typical of snipefish. It is not a fish that reacts much to divers, more likely to drift unhurried past than to bolt, which makes patient, slow-moving divers more likely to notice it in the first place.
That long tubular snout works like a pipette, letting it suck small plankton and tiny crustaceans out of crevices and open water without needing to chase anything down.
There is no clear seasonal pattern in the sightings, and the wide observed temperature range of 11.8 to 26.8 C suggests it tolerates cooler winter water as well as warmer summer conditions around La Palma. Treat it as a year-round possibility rather than a seasonal target.
Reef neighbours a diver could mistake it for. Use the identification notes above to tell them apart.
Sightings so far come from La Palma in the Canary Islands, where it turns up at a handful of sites as a real but uncommon find. There is no other logged range in the data, so La Palma is currently the place to look for it.
Mapping where Slender Snipefish is logged…
Current sightings are concentrated in La Palma in the Canary Islands, where it shows up as an uncommon find at several sites. No other regions have logged it so far.
There is no strong season in the data, and it has been recorded in water from about 12 to 27 C, so it is best treated as a year-round possibility around La Palma rather than tied to a specific month.
Check for a small, slender fish around 10 cm long with a long tubular snout, a humped back, and a pale silvery to brownish body. The needle-like shape is distinctive and not shared by most other reef fish in the area.
They stay small, typically reaching around 10 cm in length, which combined with their thin profile makes them easy to swim straight past.
Its elongated snout acts like a suction tube, allowing it to pick tiny plankton and crustaceans out of narrow gaps in the reef without needing to bite or chase prey.
No, they pose no risk to divers. They are small, slow-moving fish with no defensive behaviour aimed at people.
Site and sighting data is aggregated from diver logs, iNaturalist and GBIF. For taxonomy and conservation status:
Soldierfish
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