Every diver and photographer enjoys trying to capture anthias.  Here are a few of my favourite anthias images from my recent Maldives trip.

As most folk know, the male anthias are the more flamboyant sex, and of all the anthias species I came across I think it’s Pseudanthias ignitis that impressed me the most.  Usually, my anthias photographs feature hundreds of fish shoaling over the reef, though in this case, I happened to have a macro lens fitted when I came across this beauty.  It’s no wonder this fish is known as the Flame Anthias; the bright red dorsal and caudal margins explain the name.

This image shows a fairly typical Maldivian scene.  A shallow reef at around twenty meters with hard corals, sponges, and Halimedia, and of course, a loose shoal of Pseudanthias evansi, the Yellowtail Anthias.  In natural light the fishes’ pink flanks appear blue.

I love this image.  This coral was at least a meter across.  Look closely and you can see a shoal of juvenile P. evansi as well as a few chromis, possibly Chromis ternatensis.

My last image features the good ‘ol squammy:  Pseudanthias squamipinnis.  Despite being a hard fish to spell (two M’s or N’s? How many P’s ?), I still like to write about and photograph it, yet rarely do I have close up shots. Here are three lovely females.