Fishing with Helmut

Today we started a new initiative to improve our knowledge of the local marine life.

We´re all fairly confident we can identify the glamorous angel fish, cute little box fish, dancing juvenile sweetlips and all our other favourites. But when it comes to the less spectacular fish, sometimes we get stuck! We´re often asked what a certain fish is, sometimes one which we see everyday, but overlook in favour of their more colourful relatives.

We´ve decided to identify 1 fish everyday that we commonly see but never think to look up. We´ll draw him on the black board in the diveshop for all to see and we´re dedicating this little project to the fish ID legend Helmut Debelius, whose name you´ll find in pretty much any fish ID book ever made!

Todays fish is the Speckled Sandperch  – Paraperchis hexophthalma. Seen on almost every dive here typically perched on its ventral fins in the sand watching the divers criuse by wondering why no-ones pays him any attention. Today is your day my freind…