Good morning, this is one of the many super small, colorful, deep-sea basses that high end aquarium collectors go crazy for; this one is called a cave bass or Liopropoma mowbrayi. When I say small, I’m talking around three inches in length and NO these are not babies or juveniles they are in fact full grown adults. These little sea-bass or basslets come in a wide range of beautiful colors and are very reclusive, making them very hard to find.
Like the full grown sea bass, they eat just about whatever they can find or catch like shrimps, crabs and smaller fish, they are truly amazing hunters! This was another in the long list of finds from St. Eustatius collected by the Smithsonian Institution using a deep-sea submersible from Substation Curacao.
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