#waspfish

Fishuary 2024: Day 20 - Indian ocean @fish-daily

ハチの口の中〜!

この背びれ好きよ

The Cockatoo Waspfish (Ablabys taenianotus) is adorable! If you can find one. Or two.

Reaching about 15 cm long, they live in warm, Pacific waters from Japan to Australia where they enjoy relaxing on the sandy seabed doing mostly nothing at all.

That works really well for them because they look just like a dead, brown leaf! And dead, brown leaves don’t do much, either. Now they can quietly pounce on small crustaceans and the like without being noticed.

If, horror of horrors, a predator manages to spot one, the Cockatoo Waspfish gets... waspish? They belong to the Scorpionfish family and like most Scorpionfish, they bear pointy fin spines that can inflict a painful sting.

They’d much rather go unnoticed, though, and to help with that they even swim like a dead leaf! They keep their body rigid and let the current do most of the work for them as they make their way across the sea floor.

Male and female Cockatoo Waspfish often stick together and go around in pairs. It looks a little suspicious when you see a pair of dead leaves out for a walk, apparently enjoying each other’s company, but it seems to work out for them.

Bullrout Genus: Notesthes Species: N. robusta Maximum Size: 12” Aggression: Mid Temperature: 75-80 F pH: 7.5-8.5 Hardness: 15-25 dH Brackish Tolerance: 1.010-1.025 Minimum Tank Size: 55 gallons Feeding: Live Shrimps and Earthworms, can eventually be weaned onto frozen foods like krill, shrimp, pieces of fish, and chopped shellfish Notes: The Bullrout is often sold as Freshwater Stonefish or Freshwater Scorpionfish but is a brackish to marine fish that does not survive long term in Freshwater. They are Waspfish, closely related to the Butterfly Goby and more distantly related to the marine Lionfish and Stonefish.

Bullrouts are generally inactive in the home aquarium. They spend most of the day hiding in rockwork or under a thin layer of substrate and are more active at night. Lighting in the tank should be subdued. Though predatory, they are not especially aggressive fish. Large, non-aggressive fish like Scats, Monos, and Batfish are all good choices, as are the larger Archerfish. Nippy fish are likely to be stung by the Bullrout. Avoid housing with any fish that are significantly smaller than they are, as these fish will likely be eaten.

As with other Scorpaeniformes, these fish are very venomous and can present a danger to the aquarist (especially those who are allergic to animal/insect stings). The sting is not likely to be fatal but care should still be taken with these fish. Always keep an eye on them when doing tank maintenance and keep hands out of the tank as much as possible. Running any stung areas under hot water may help with the pain should an injury occur.

Sources

Notesthes robusta, The Aquarium Wiki

Bullrout (Notesthes robusta), Neale Monks

Cockatoo Waspfish | Ablabys taenianotus