Vincentia macrocauda, the smooth cardinalfish, is an unusual marine fish from the Indian Ocean along the coast of Western Australia. Like the true personifer angelfish, the smooth cardinalfish is yet another cool marine fish that comes only from from Western Australia and this species is almost undocumented. The Vincentia cardinalfish are poorly known by both marine life naturalists and marine aquarium hobbyists due to the secretive nature and nocturnal behavior.
This juvenile smooth cardinalfish was photographed while diving in Esperance, Western Australia. These are the only known pictures of a living Vincentia macrocauda, but we’ll guess that the pictures of this juvenile specimen will encourage other WA divers to be on the lookout for this species during night dives. It was hard enough getting lennard’s wrasses and true personifer angelfish from WA, so don’t expect this Western Australia to ever be collected for the trade. That is unless a full time fish exporter sets up shop on the west coast of Australia, which isn’t out of the question considering how many cool fish are found only there.
[via Feel The Sea]
