Dactylanthiasis a genus of large, very showy anthias that live in water so deep they are only rarely seen alive, usually through deep diving submersibles and ROVs. For the most part the majority of photos ofDactylanthiasare of freshly reeled up specimens with clear distress from decompression with eyes bugging out, a distended belly and a fisherman’s thumb in its mouth.
But more recently a large intact specimen ofDactylanthias aplodactyluswas collected by a fisherman in Nauru and made available to taxonomists John Pogonoski and Anthony Gill which they used to revise the species and the genus beyond its original description in 1858.
The Nauru specimen is quite the looker with a standard length of 221mm or just under nine inches long, not counting a pair streamers on its tail fin that just seem to go on forever (or at least another few inches). At this large adult size the fish is a very showy specimen with all the trappings of a beautifulOdontanthiaswith filaments on the dorsal and anal fins but with a red coloration more reminiscent ofSacuraspecies.
Perhaps the most astounding feature of the examined specimen is its sizable extended mouth that is more like a predatoryBodianushogfish,paired with respectable dentition that makes us believe thisDactylanthiashas a taste more for small fish than typical zooplankton. Most of theDactylanthias标本被发现200之间的深度nd 240 meters, 656 to 787 feet and we know they can live even deeper so freshly caught fish from hook & line will be the best look we can get at these fascinating deep sea fish for the time being. [ZooTaxa]