It lives in the open on bare sand, which is the most exposed address on the site, and it does not hide.
Most sand-dwelling fish solve that problem by burying themselves, matching the sediment, or staying within a body length of a hole. This one is blue-gray with a broad black stripe from eye to tail, swims well clear of the bottom in plain view, and covers ground. Its defense is speed and distance: it sees a threat coming across open bottom long before the threat arrives, and it has a burrow it can reach.
Open sand is not empty. It is a habitat with its own specialists, and the reason it looks lifeless to a diver is that most of what lives there is either buried, hovering above a hole, or a long way off before you noticed it. The fish that work it in the open are few, and they are all fast.
This is the largest of them here at forty-five centimeters, usually in pairs on sand slopes beside reef, from about five meters down to sixty-five.
The juveniles look like a different species: black and white, much more slender, and often mistaken for something else entirely.
The genus. Malacanthus Cuvier 1829 - malakos (soft) + acanthus (thorn or spine). ETYFish
The species. Malacanthus latovittatus (Lacepède 1801) - latus (wide) + vittatus (striped). ETYFish
- long blue-gray body with a broad black stripe running from the eye to the tail
- swims well clear of the bottom in the open, unlike most sand fish
- juveniles black and white and much more slender
- up to 45 cm
Why it's threatened
There are no known major threats.
Threat classification from the IUCN Red List.
