A week ago we had the distinct privilege of kicking it at LiveAquaria and among all the treasures we discovered, we got to meet the wonderful pair of flathead perch living in one of the display aquariums in Kevin Kohen’s office. Notice we used the word ‘meet’ instead of ‘saw’ since the pair of Rainfordia opercularis were extremely inquisitive and personable acting more like curious, almost playful puppy dogs than the overgrown flat faced candy basslets that pictures make them out to be.
Nevermind that the price of the flathead perch is prohibitively expensive for all but the most loaded aquarium hobbyist, these large relatives of Liopropoma are very striking in person, much larger than you would think, and they really interact with passersby of their aquarium. Their behavior indicates that there’s ‘somebody home’ as they are constantly scanning their environment and don’t act like spooked little designer basslets at all. We’re still working on a video of this super interesting pair of flathead perch but in the meantime enjoy the series of pictures posted below.
