The slender rainbow sardine (Dussumieria elopsoides) is a small, subtropical, salt water fish of the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea which was first described by Bleeker in 1849.

[1] The native range of the slender rainbow sardine is in the tropical and subtropical portions of the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea.

[2] Dussumieria elopsoides entered the Mediterranean Sea via the Suez Canal in the middle of the last century.

[3] The slender rainbow sardine swims in schools and while pelagic it is generally found near shores.

Frequently fishermen catch them in shore with a purse seine (an encircling net) and then release them in deeper water where they attract larger fish.