A silvery fish with a single hairline stripe and a small black spot at the tail, hanging under a ledge on its own. Twelve centimeters (5 in).
Its depth range is the surprise: recorded from three meters down to a hundred and twenty. That spread is common in this family and rare in most others, and it is a consequence of how they live - a fish that spends the day in a hole and hunts in the dark does not much care how deep the hole is, since the light conditions it works in are the same either way.
The spot sits below the line of the stripe, which is what separates it from the several other single-striped cardinalfish in the region.
Male broods in the mouth for about a week, fasting. It is worth repeating because it is the family's defining behavior: nearly every cardinalfish a diver sees is either about to do this, doing it, or recovering from it.
The genus. Pristiapogon Klunzinger 1870 - pristis (sawyer). ETYFish
The species. Pristiapogon exostigma (Jordan & Starks 1906) - éxō (outer or external) + stígma (mark or spot). ETYFish
- silvery body with one fine dark stripe from the snout through the eye to the tail
- small black spot on the tail base, below the level of the stripe
- hovers alone or in twos under ledges
- length up to 12 cm
Why it's threatened
This species is a component of the marine ornamental trade, but the potential impact is unknown.
Threat classification from the IUCN Red List.
