Black-barred Halfbeak

Hemiramphus far has a laterally compressed body which is elongate oval in cross-section and has a very long, beak-like lower jaw with a short upper jaw which is triangular and lacks scales; there is no preorbital ridge. The total number of gill rakers on first gill arch is 25–36 with 21–27 on the second arch. It has short pectoral fins which do not extend past the nasal fossa when they are folded forwards. There are 3–9, normally 4–6, dark vertical bars on the sides and the back is bluish in colour with silvery sides. The caudal fin is asymmetrical with the lower lobe being longer than the upper lobe. The dorsal fin and the anal fin are located towards the tail. These fins are dark in colour. The meristic formula is D,12-15, A,10-12, P,11-13. The maximum length is 33 cm.

Hemiramphus far occurs in the Indian Ocean from the Red Sea and East Africa into the Pacific Ocean as far as Samoa, north to the Ryukyu Islands and south to northern Australia and New Caledonia. H. far was first recorded in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Palestine in 1927, following a likely migration through the Suez Canal and is now very abundant in the whole eastern Basin, with recent records off Algeria in the western Basin.

Hemiramphus far was described in 1775 by the Swedish zoologist Peter Forsskål as Esox far but the generic name Hemiramphus which is from the Greek hemi meaning "half" and rhamphos meaning "a bill" or "a peak" was coined by the French naturalist Georges Cuvier in 1816.