No Ghosts. Just Dragons.

December 28, 2010

Mei Lin, a marine biologist who specialises on clams and who dives often with The Hantu Blog, paid the island’s reefs a visit over the Christmas weekend and found a rare fish that was all decked out for the festivities.

The Orange and Black Dragonet Synchiropus kuiteri, or Orange-Black Dragonet, is a tropical fish that’s found mainly in the Indo-West Pacific. This colourful fish typically lives on sandy bottoms and feeds on small benthic invertebrates; some species are reef dwellers. Some similar species are popular in the aquarium trade but are difficult to maintain as they feed only on small invertebrates. The Orange and Black Dragonet belongs to the Class Actinopterygii (ray-finned fishes ) and the Order Perciformes. It contains 18 genera and 130 species. It may be found in Marine and Brackish environments and is primarily Marine. Some members of this family are used in the aquarium trade. Reproductively, most members of this family are nonguarders, which means that they supply no aftercare for their eggs. Members of this family have been dated back to the Cretaceous period. That means that its ancestors shared the same seas as the dinosaurs, mosasaurs, ichthyosaurs, and plesiosaurs. Peer into a world 150 million years old when you meet eye to eye with a Orange and Black Dragonet at Pulau Hantu.

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