Scalefin anthias

How do you identify a scalefin anthias?

The scalefin anthias, also called the lyretail anthias or sea goldie, is a small reef fish that grows no longer than 15 centimeters. The two sexes look different. Females, no more than 7 centimeters long, are golden orange, with a violet stripe running from the eye toward the pectoral fin. The male, twice as long, is fuchsia to purple, his flanks flecked with yellow; he has a red spot on the pectoral fin, one dorsal ray stretched into a long filament and elongated tail tips, hence the name lyretail. Since one male guards five to ten females, they are what you see first in a school; you pick out the males next, larger and more colorful.

How do scalefin anthias live?

The scalefin anthias lives in large schools above coral heads, in clear lagoons, on patch reefs and along outer slopes, from the surface to 55 meters and most often between 5 and 35 meters. It feeds on zooplankton, which it hunts in open water above the reef. It ranges from the Red Sea and South Africa to Japan, Australia and Niue, in the Pacific. The species has been listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List since its 2015 assessment.

Where and when can you see scalefin anthias?

In the Red Sea, the anthias is there year-round, and our pages note it on every major reef. At Elphinstone, it covers the walls by the thousands, an everyday show; at the Dahab Blue Hole, it forms a cloud along the whole outer wall; at Daedalus, it lives on the walls and at Anemone City; at the Brothers, in the soft corals of the walls and wrecks; at the Giftun Islands, on the towers of Erg Somaya and along the wall; at St. John's and Fury Shoals, in every coral garden. Its schools also swirl around the structure of the Thistlegorm, with the barracudas and batfish, and cover the wall of Shark Reef, at Ras Mohammed. In Indonesia, the wall of Batu Bolong, in Komodo, holds anthias and fusiliers by the thousands year-round: they are the site's fish soup.

In the Mediterranean, the permanent cloud that wraps the Rubis wreck, off Cavalaire, and the one swirling above the boilers of the Liban, off Marseille, belong to a cousin, Anthias anthias, which lives 15 to 200 meters deep, from the Mediterranean to the eastern Atlantic.

How do scalefin anthias change sex?

The scalefin anthias is a hermaphrodite: every individual starts life as a female, and only some become males. Each territorial male guards a harem of five to ten females. When he dies or leaves the group, the largest female changes sex: her hormones, then her colors and shape, transform within two to four weeks. The change only happens from about 5 centimeters, and in a group left without any male, it takes 170 to 280 days.