Doug, Curaçao
Info
Apogon pillionatus is a very rare cardinalfish, of which there are very few photos of a live fish in its natural habitat.
Doug, who kindly provided us with his great photo, wrote about it:
“ I remember taking the photo. It was in Bonaire and we were diving in a rubble area. I saw the fish, took a few photos and didn't give it a second thought. When we looked at the photos later, we realized that it was a very rare fish. When we came back later to take more (better) photos, we couldn't find it. We never saw one again.”
The perch prefers boulder bottoms near reefs, where it can quickly find good protection from predators.
Rarely occurring animals are naturally also less well studied due to their rarity, as illustrated by the different data on the cardinalfish:
Water depth according to
FishBase: 5 - 90 meters
IUCN Red List: 7 - 90 meters
Shorefishes of the Greater Caribbean online information system: 7 - 122 meters
Unfortunately, all sources fail to provide a detailed indication of the preferred food of the perch!
The cardinalfish is red with 2 dark bars: a narrow bar under the back of the dorsal fin and in front of the base of the tail, and a very wide bar at the end of the base of the tail, separated by a distance < the width of the rear bar.
Often a light narrow white bar is visible immediately behind each of these dark bars, sometimes a white bar is visible in front of the first dark bar.
We would like to thank Doug from Curaçao for his kindness in sharing his photo of Apogon pillionatus with us.
For the special friends and lovers of cardinalfishes we recommend the download of the book “Cardinalfishes of the World” by Rudie H. Kuiter:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335777894_ApogonidaeFishesLRs
Doug, who kindly provided us with his great photo, wrote about it:
“ I remember taking the photo. It was in Bonaire and we were diving in a rubble area. I saw the fish, took a few photos and didn't give it a second thought. When we looked at the photos later, we realized that it was a very rare fish. When we came back later to take more (better) photos, we couldn't find it. We never saw one again.”
The perch prefers boulder bottoms near reefs, where it can quickly find good protection from predators.
Rarely occurring animals are naturally also less well studied due to their rarity, as illustrated by the different data on the cardinalfish:
Water depth according to
FishBase: 5 - 90 meters
IUCN Red List: 7 - 90 meters
Shorefishes of the Greater Caribbean online information system: 7 - 122 meters
Unfortunately, all sources fail to provide a detailed indication of the preferred food of the perch!
The cardinalfish is red with 2 dark bars: a narrow bar under the back of the dorsal fin and in front of the base of the tail, and a very wide bar at the end of the base of the tail, separated by a distance < the width of the rear bar.
Often a light narrow white bar is visible immediately behind each of these dark bars, sometimes a white bar is visible in front of the first dark bar.
We would like to thank Doug from Curaçao for his kindness in sharing his photo of Apogon pillionatus with us.
For the special friends and lovers of cardinalfishes we recommend the download of the book “Cardinalfishes of the World” by Rudie H. Kuiter:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335777894_ApogonidaeFishesLRs
