There’s tons of different species of sandperches, small bottom-dwelling tropical marine fish intriguing eyes and an inquisitive behavior. They’re small, hardy and usually pretty cheap, and today we can add one more species to the catalog of Parapercis,
Parapercis binotata is a new species of sandperch from the Solomon Islands which was discovered in a pretty well tucked away nook of the Russel Group of islands. Being more associated with white sandy bottoms, it makes sense that the new Parapercis binotata would be bright white colored with some degree of small colored markings on the flanks.
There are some subtle color differences between the male and female P. binotata but the most obvious of which is the appearance of the black marking on the cheek and under the eye. In males it’s a bold black dash and in the females it’s a thinner curved line, both of which are bordered in white.
It’s kind of cool to know that there is one surefire way to tell the sexes apart at least in one species, and we’ll be examining other sandperches in the future for signs of this gender difference as well. Parapercis binotata is described by Gerald Allen and Mark Erdmann in the latest volume of the Journal of the Ocean Science Foundation. [JOSF]
