I suspect this pair of Long-Horned Cowfish are mates, since I have seen them together on numerous occasions in the same dive spot. Each one is about five inches in length. I presume they are named "cowfish" after the horns, since they don't have udders and don't "moo" (though they do grunt when held). When they're blowing into the sand looking for a meal you might say they were "grazing". Normally they avoid divers, but cowfish are fairly slow swimmers, barely able to swim faster than a diver. This was taken during a night dive when they're easier to approach.

About this image

Identification
Lactoria cornuta (Trunkfish)
Location

Anilao, Luzon Island, Philippines

Contributors
Jeffrey N. Jeffords
photographer copyright holder identification
Subjects

Conditions of use

Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License .

To cite this page: Jeffords, J. 2004. "cowfish_pair.jpg" (On-line), Animal Diversity Web. Accessed {%B %d, %Y} at https://animaldiversity.org/collections/contributors/jeffrey_jeffords/fish/cowfish_pair/

Last updated: 2004-35-14 / Generated: 2025-09-15 02:01

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