Pale with 20 or more dark bands around body made up of fine horizontal black lines, paired yellow spots along back, black lines on head, three black spots on throat and a pink snout usually with black spots or reticular pattern. Tail fin pink/red with a white margin. Similar species C. haemotopterus (Reeftop Pipefish) has less distinct or even lacks dark markings on the rear third of body. Almost always found in pairs or sometimes small aggregations.

• Max Size: 16 cm
• Sea Temperature Range: 22.4-30.5°C
• Depth: 0-25m
• Habitat: Coral Reef, Rocky Reef, Soft sediment
• Habitat Generalisation Index: 1.8
  Also referred to as the SGI (Species generalisation index), this describes the habitat niche breadth of the species. Species with values less than 15 are found in a relatively narrow range of reef habitat types (specialists), while those over 25 may be found on most hard substrates within their range (generalists). Learn more here

• Threats: Exploitation
• IUCN Threat Status: Not Evaluated
• Occurrence: Infrequent (2% of sites)
  Occurrence describes how often the species is found on surveys within its distribution. It is calculated as the % of reef sites surveyed by RLS divers across all the ecoregions in which the species has been observed
• Abundance: Few (3 per transect)
  Abundance is calculated as the average number of individuals recorded per RLS transect, where present.