A small pink cardinalfish with two dark diagonal bands, hanging in a cave or an undercut and usually on its own.
Oblique bands are unusual on this family - most of the group runs its stripes lengthwise - and they do a different job. A diagonal breaks the horizontal line of a fish, which is the shape a predator looks for, and against the confused shadows of a cave interior it works better than a stripe would.
It lives deeper in cover than most cardinalfish, and it hunts small crustaceans in the dark just outside its hole rather than joining the nightly movement over open bottom.
Eight centimeters (3 in), pink in torchlight and effectively black without one - red and pink read as dark at depth, which is why so many cave and night fish are that color. It is a mouthbrooder like the rest of the family.
The genus. Apogon Lacepède 1801 - ἀ- (privative) + pṓgōn (beard). ETYFish
The species. Apogon semiornatus Peters 1876 - semi-. ETYFish
- pale pink body with two dark oblique bands running down and back
- one band through the eye, the second across the middle of the body
- deep in caves and undercuts, usually alone
- length up to 8 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.
