Twelve centimeters (5 in) of fish disguised as a clump of weed, with branched tentacles over the eyes longer than the eyes themselves. It is one of the great prizes of muck diving, and finding one is entirely a matter of a guide who knows the individual animal.
The disguise has a maintenance problem: anything sitting still on a silty slope gets colonized. Algae, hydroids and diatoms settle on it, and after a few weeks the fish is genuinely overgrown. So it molts. Every couple of weeks the whole outer skin comes off in one piece, taking the growth with it, and a clean animal walks out - which is also why the same fish can look purple one month and yellow the next.
It walks rather than swims, stepping across the bottom on thickened lower pectoral rays, and hunts by waiting for something small to pass within a body length.
The dorsal spines are venomous like the rest of the family's. Nobody is stung by one under water; the risk is a hand placed on silty bottom that turns out to be occupied. Hot water at 45 C (113 F) and a doctor if it happens.
The genus. Pteroidichthys Bleeker 1856 - -oides (having the form of Pterois) + ichthys (fish). ETYFish
- long branched tentacles over each eye, often longer than the eye itself
- shaggy skin flaps along the jaw and body, in yellow, pink, purple or brown
- hairy, weed-like outline with no clean edge anywhere
- length up to 12 cm
Why it's threatened
There are no known major threats to this species. Although it is popular in the aquarium trade, significant population declines are not suspected.
Threat classification from the IUCN Red List.
