half-beak the English name for a whole tribe of Indo-Pacific fish in the genus Hemiramphus. They are closely related to the garfish, but instead of having two long pointed jaws they have only a long lower jaw. This is not, strictly speaking, a jaw, but a bony projection from the jaw, and it is equipped with a sensitive fringe of tissue which serves for the detection of food. This tissue at the end of the half-beak is either red or green, and there are separate names in the Philippines for the two kinds.
