Every other cardinalfish in this catalogue is silvery, big-eyed and in a group. This one went the other way entirely.
It is mottled brown and cream in an irregular pattern with nothing repeating in it, it sits on the bottom instead of hovering, it is solitary, and it lives in rubble, seagrass and dead coral, often tucked inside an empty shell. Put it next to the yellow-striped and threadfin cardinalfish and the family resemblance is only in the head: the same blunt snout and outsized eye.
That is two solutions to the same problem. A small nocturnal fish can defend itself by being one of five hundred identical fish in open water, or by being indistinguishable from the bottom. Both work, and a family that has produced dozens of species in one sea has had room to try both.
The eye still gives away what it is. Cardinalfish eyes are built for the dark, and even on a cryptic bottom-sitting species they are far larger than the head really wants, which is the one thing that stays constant across the whole family.
The genus. Apogonichthys Bleeker 1854 - ichthýs (fish). ETYFish
- mottled brown and cream, broken up like a piece of rubble
- no stripes, no tail spot, nothing regular in the pattern
- solitary, sitting on the bottom rather than hovering
- up to 6 cm
Why it's threatened
There are no known major threats.
Threat classification from the IUCN Red List.
