Great Barracuda

Photo: Christian Amador Da Silva · © all rights reserved

Barracuda aggregate in the pass in tornados of several hundred individuals, rotating slowly in the current just inside the reef crest at 10 to 20 metres. The behaviour is thought to be a schooling strategy linked to tidal timing, with the schools forming on incoming tides and dispersing to hunt individually on the outgoing flow. Their silver bodies catch the filtered light in flashing unison, creating one of the most visually spectacular schooling displays in the Indian Ocean.