plectranthiasare one of the funnest and prettiest group of small and rare reef fish. BesidesP. inermis, the majority of the other species are only found in deep water and it’s always a treat when we get to see basslets from this group. New species are infrequently sighted, described and discovered but today’s story is about a case of mistaken identity.
There is only onedescribedspecies ofplectranthiasfrom the Caribbean, the apricot bassletP. garrupellus, with at least one more undescribed species. But as it turns out, fish fanciers and researchers have collectively mistaken the undescribed species as the Apricot basslet while the recent collections of anew fish from Curacao确实是真实的P. garrupellus.
This kind of identity theft is not at all uncommon, especially with the small, cryptic and rarely seen deepwater basslets of the Caribbean. Very recently we learned that this was also the case with one example ofLipogrammathought to be a known species, but new collections revealed that is was in fact undescribed. The mixup was brought to our attention by Dr. Ross Robertson, one of the curators of the master list ofCaribbean和East Pacific Fishwhich are presented in exquisite detail in his FREE smartphone apps, soon to be updated.
