Marine Wildlife Encyclopedia
Trumpetfish Aulostomus maculatus
The trumpetfish looks like a piece of drifting wood, hiding itself among sea fans and other corals. It has a long, slender, straight body, and when it flares open its mouth, its long snout resembles a thin trumpet. The trumpetfish is usually brown, but some individuals have a yellow body. It hunts by lying in wait to ambush passing shoals of fish, but it is also known to follow predatory fish such as moray eels and steal some of the fish that they flush from their hiding places.
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- Order Syngnathiformes
- Length Up to 3 ft (1 m)
- Weight Not recorded
- Depth 7–80 ft (2–25 m)
- Distribution Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea, and subtropical waters of western Atlantic
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