Dorab wolf herring
Chirocentrus dorab
Illustration: Bloom by Day
A long silver blade of a fish, flattened side-on and armed with a mouthful of dagger teeth, dark blue-green along the back and bright silver everywhere else. It hunts baitfish in inshore surface water, sometimes in a frenzy, and is far more often seen as a flash and a swirl than as a fish.
how to recognise it
- a long blade of a fish — elongate and very compressed from side to side
- many dagger-like teeth in the jaws
- dark bluish-green above, bright silvery on the sides and below
- blackish outer rays on the dorsal fin and blackish front rays on the anal fin
don’t confuse with
- Australian anchovy — the anchovy is a small fish to 16 cm with a bluntly rounded snout overhanging its mouth; this is a metre of predator with dagger teeth
- Australian sardine — the sardine carries one row of evenly spaced dark blue spots along its side and reaches 30 cm
Field marks read from Fishes of Australia, 2026-10-15. Our wording, their facts. Max size 100 cm SL.
facts
- habitat
- pelagic
- size
- ~70 cm, to 100 cm
Max size from Fishes of Australia (100 cm SL); the typical size is Bluebird’s, not from a cited source
- records
- 17 at 7 spot(s), none of
them in this region
Recorded at Low Isles (Port Douglas), Port Douglas (Outer GBR), Dunk Island (Mission Beach), Hinchinbrook Island — Ramsay Bay, Magnetic Island — Geoffrey Bay, Pioneer Rocks (Whitsundays), Redcliffe Jetty. A count of occurrence records, not abundance. Records are where someone looked.
when it has been recorded
JFMAMJJASOND
A gap means no record in the sample, not absence.
the rule
QLD — No size limit · Limit: 10
source
· verified 2026-10-10
no NSW rule listed — check before you dive
no closed season recorded for this species — that is not the same as open; check the official page
Rules checked 2026-10-13 against qld.gov.au
Rules change. Check before you dive.
Occurrence data: Atlas of Living Australia (ala.org.au), CC-BY 4.0.
Diver transect counts: Reef Life Survey (reeflifesurvey.com), CC-BY 4.0, supplied via ALA.
Target and protected species: Queensland tidal-water size and possession limits (qld.gov.au) and NSW saltwater bag and size limits plus threatened species lists (dpird.nsw.gov.au).
Habitat and size: Bluebird, approximate, from general knowledge. Not cited. FishBase is CC BY-NC and this app is commercial, so it is not used.
Description written for Bloom. RECORDS ARE WHERE SOMEONE LOOKED, NOT WHERE THE FISH ARE. A record count is a count of records near here and nothing else -- it is not abundance, and a species with few records is not rare. Absence of records is not absence of fish.
Diver transect counts: Reef Life Survey (reeflifesurvey.com), CC-BY 4.0, supplied via ALA.
Target and protected species: Queensland tidal-water size and possession limits (qld.gov.au) and NSW saltwater bag and size limits plus threatened species lists (dpird.nsw.gov.au).
Habitat and size: Bluebird, approximate, from general knowledge. Not cited. FishBase is CC BY-NC and this app is commercial, so it is not used.
Description written for Bloom. RECORDS ARE WHERE SOMEONE LOOKED, NOT WHERE THE FISH ARE. A record count is a count of records near here and nothing else -- it is not abundance, and a species with few records is not rare. Absence of records is not absence of fish.