A silver disc on edge, 70 cm (28 in) tall, with two dark bars and a habit of hanging motionless beside a wreck in a loose group. Adults are calm to the point of curiosity and will follow a diver.
The young are a different animal. A juvenile has dorsal and anal fins drawn out far above and below the body, so the fish is much taller than it is long, and it hangs at an angle among mangrove roots or drifting weed passing for a dead leaf - dark brown, motionless, drifting with the surge. The fins shrink as it grows.
Adults feed on jellyfish, plankton, algae and small invertebrates, and they are one of the few fish that will take on stinging jellyfish routinely, biting the bell rather than the arms.
They aggregate around structure - wrecks, mooring blocks, isolated pinnacles - which is why the same wreck holds a school of batfish year after year, and why the species is one of the easiest large fish here to photograph well.
The genus. Platax Cuvier 1816 - platys (flat). ETYFish
The species. Platax teira (Forsskål 1775) - Arabic name for this fish. ETYFish
- very deep, flattened silver disc with two dark bars, one through the eye
- juveniles have hugely extended dorsal and anal fins, taller than the body
- hangs almost motionless beside a wreck or under an overhang
- length up to 70 cm
Why it's threatened
There are no known major threats for Platax teira in the Persian Gulf.
Threat classification from the IUCN Red List.
