 Due to confusion with the common thresher, the distribution of the pelagic thresher may be wider than is currently known.It ranges extensively in the Indo-Pacific, with scattered records from South Africa, the Red Sea, and the Arabian Sea (off Somalia, between Oman and India, and off Pakistan), to China, southeastern Japan, northwestern Australia, New Caledonia, and Tahiti, to the Hawaiian Islands, the Gulf of California, and the Galapagos Islands.The North Pacific population shifts northward during warm El Nino years.