All species share the generic name Sphyraena

S. barracuda (great barracuda)

(200 cm, plus); 48kg/106lbs; warm waters nearly worldwide; generally considered solitary and diurnal, but frequently occur in groups. The largest barracuda, this species may well exceed the maximum length listed here and each lengths of 2.5 m or more, as at least one report from an eminently qualified observer suggests.

S. jello (pickhandle barracuda)

(150 cm, plus) 22 lbs; Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal...also found in other parts of the Indo-Pacific; generally considered solitary and diurnal, but most that I saw in Madang, Papua New Guinea were in groups. These barracuda were also distinguished by yellow tails, a fact that made field identification problematic, at first, because very few references mention that the species comes in a yellow-tailed flavor in addition to the more commonly-cited gray-tailed version. On one deep dive, my research assistant and I saw a specimen of S. jello, quite a distance below us, that must have exceeded the maximum size listed here by at least 43 centimeters or so (not counting a fairly venerable reference on Papua New Guinean fishes that lists its maximum body length as eight feet, or 244 cm).

S. afra (Guinean barracuda) (= piscatorum)

(205 cm)

S. qenie (blackfin barracuda)

(115 cm) Indian Ocean, Northern Australia, Red Sea, Arabian Sea, western Pacific; generally considered solitary and nocturnal, though most reports corroborate my observation of the species in Papua New Guinea being in groups and active during the day (most, or many, of the photos of barracuda in coffee-table books are of this species, schooling during daylight hours). The species epithet is often mis-spelled as 'genie' — I was guilty of this for a long time, partly because (even when I saw it as 'qenie') it seemed more appealing than the alternative. I think that the dichotomy came from an early typo that has perpetuated over time to the point that you'll now see some references discuss 'S. genie' whereas other focus on 'S. qenie.' Attempting to pronounce Latin names is far from my strongest point, but I believe the correct pronunciation is "keeny."

S. lucasana (Lucas barracuda)

(70 cm)

S. idiastes (baracuda; southern barracuda; striped seapike; pelican barracuda)

(91 cm) Indian Ocean, Galapagos

S. argentea (California barracuda; Pacific barracuda)

(145 cm); schooling diurnal

S. picudilla (southern sennet)

(46 cm); FL, Bahamas to Uruguay; schooling diurnal

S. borealis (northern sennet)

(46 cm); Mass to S. FL & Gulf, Bermuda; schooling diurnal

S. viridensis (yellowmouth barracuda)

(128 cm)

S. sphyraena (European barracuda)

(165 cm)

S. guachancho (guaguanche; guachanche barracuda)

(60 cm); Mass & N. Gulf to Brazil, E. Atlantic

S. ensis (Mexican barracuda)

(127 cm) Eastern Pacific

S. putnamiae (sawtooth barracuda; chevron barracuda) (=bleekeri)

(87 cm) Indian Ocean, Indo-Pacific (Indian Ocean, Red Sea, Persian Gulf, Arabian Sea, northern Australia); schooling nocturnal. Again, these schools may be active diurnally (from anecdotal reports). On the other hand, this species is often (and quite easily) confused with S. qenie

S. chrysotaenia (yellowstripe barracuda)(= obtusata ? (striped barracuda; striped seapike; obtuse barracuda))

(30 cm) Indian Ocean, Philippines, Red Sea, Indo-Pacific; schooling diurnal. This species is often confused with S. flavicauda and I've been told that it may be the same species, collected in different parts of the Indo-Pacific.

S. flavicauda (yellowtail barracuda)

(60 cm) Indian Ocean, Indonesia, NSW, Red Sea; schooling diurnal and nocturnal (?). In Papua New Guinea, I saw this species in schools, usually seeking refuge in or near branched coral formations and generally acting like prey more than predator (that, because of their size and vulnerability to a wider range of predators, is probably the case). Although active when I saw them, in daylight hours (in most cases this was probably a result of being disturbed), being primarily nocturnal makes sense in that it may provide an element of protection against many of the predators that this small barracuda is most vulnerable to. I only had one encounter with this species during a subsequent trip to another part of Papua New Guinea — the school members were bigger and they were on an oceanic platform reef, that I wouldn't have expected to be a good home for them.

S. pinguis (=brachygnathus or langsar?)

(35 cm). Another one that's similar to the two above. Field identification of these smaller barracuda species would be a nightmare where they co-occur.

S. forsteri (blackspot or bigeye barracuda) (=toxeuma)

(75 cm) Indian Ocean, Marshall Islands, Marquesas; solitary nocturnal...supposedly, at least — all of the S. forsteri that I have seen in Papua New Guinea occurred in very cohesive schools. The schools appeared diurnally active but I hope to return to Papua New Guinea to (among other things) conduct more twilight and night dives to determine if and when the aggregations break up. The species' large eyes may lend credence to the thesis that they are nocturnal foragers. Like S. jello, this species gave me a hard time when I first went to PNG, in terms of identification, because they came with unauthorized yellow on second dorsal and pectoral fins...also, neither species was 'supposed' to be present in my Madang study area, though they turned out to be the two most common barracuda species at the sites that I visited there.

S. acutipinnis (sharp-finned barracuda)(= africana, japonica (Japanese barracuda), helleri)

(80 cm) Indian Ocean; solitary nocturnal?

S. helleri? (Heller's barracuda)

(80 cm); this is the one — assuming that it's a valid species — that you might see schooling around the Hawaiian Islands.

S. novaehollandiae (snook; short-finned seapike; arrow barracuda; Australian barracuda)

(100 cm) Indian Ocean, Victoria?; solitary nocturnal?

Two more!

I'd never heard of either of these two species until I recently looked at updated FishBase pages — I have no idea of who thinks these are valid species but I'll add them here...apparently we have somewhere between 20 (maybe even as few as 18) and 25 barracuda species out there:

• S. tome (bicuda)

(45 cm) Southwest Atlantic Ocean (Brazil and Argentina); pelagic species

• S. waitii

tropical Indo-Pacific pelagic species

It's also worth noting that FishBase considers a couple of species that I've listed above as synonyms (not valid species in themselves) — S. japonica and S. obtusata — as valid species.

As you can see, we as yet know very little about the vast majority of barracuda species (including exactly how many there are). Hopefully we can begin to understand the world of these animals before we destroy it.