Species Spotlight: Cardinal Fish
Species spotlight:
Enter the Banggaii Archipelago, a reef paradise in Indonesia where you can swim to your heart's content, snacking on tasty copepods. But there is trouble in paradise! Read on to find out more (and to find out what an Earth a copepod is)
Names & Nicknames: Cadinalfish, Kaudern’s cardinalfish, Longfin cardinalfish
Size: Certainly not the biggest fish in the sea (that would be our friend, the Whale Shark), at up to 8cm in length and 11 grams in weight, these little guys have to be wary of the array of larger fish who would try and eat them.
Favourite Hangout: Banggaii cardinalfish fish are found in one palace and one place only - the tropical paradise of the Banggaii archipelago. Here, they love to swim in shallow, calm waters, mainly around coral reefs, seagrass beds, and sheltered lagoons. Now that's the life!
Favourite Snack: A range of tiny invertebrates and organisms floating around, but their favourite snack is copepods, small crustaceans that kinda' look like teensy-weensy shrimp.
Eating Habits: These fishies are pretty opportunistic, although they prefer a tasty copepod; if any small invertebrate floats by... well... it's snack time.
Toilet Humour: Banggaii cardinalfish are unfortunately susceptible to several diseases, such as nasty iridovirus that causes their poop to go white before they usually diet shortly after. Nasty stuff.
Love Language: Females take the lead. They begin by isolating their chosen lover and wooing them with some ‘side by side trembling’. Now, if that doesn't get you going, we don’t know what will! If the male is picking up what she is putting down, he'll sporadically open his mouth, and this courtship behaviour can last anywhere from several hours to over a month.
If you see them: Then watch out! As a defence mechanism to avoid getting eaten by larger fish, Banggaii cardinalfish will often hang out within the spines of sea urchins, so don't get too close, or you might get a nasty jab.
Red Flags: Being isolated to such a small region, of course, means that if anything happens to their tropical archipelago paradise, it could spell disaster for the Banggaii cardinalfish. Another major threat is that, obviously, these fish are gorgeous. Still, unfortunately, that means they are highly sought after for aquariums, leading to many of them being caught from their natural homes and often dying during capture or transport.
Epic Journeys: Banggaii cardinalfish don’t get out much and are restricted to a range of around 10,000 square kilometres in the Banggai archipelago in Indonesia. Part of the reason they don’t get around more is that, unlike some other reef fish, they don’t have a pelagic larval stage; this means they don't have a larval stage where they are free to float through the ocean and so don't spread as far as much other fish.
Glow-up: Cardinalfish (like the famous example of the seahorse), flip the script on gender norms, and the male provides the parental care. After fertilisation, the male will collect the fertilised eggs in his mouth, which he will hold as they develop. This provides the eggs with a safe place to grow and develop, and the male will look after them, shielding them from any potential predators. After they hatch, the fry (baby fish) will stay in the male's mouth for a bit longer before they are ready to be released and swim out on their own. Shout out to all the single dads out there!
Facts: A cardinalfish’s dot pattern is unique to each individual fish, like a human fingerprint.
Who are they in the friendship group: A real homebody and a dedicated father.
Name:
Banggaii Cardinalfish
Habitat:
Shallow, calm waters in coral reefs, seagrass beds, and bays of the Banggai Archipelago, Indonesia
Diet:
Mainly copepods (small crustaceans) as well as other small invertebrates and other planktonic organisms (tiny organisms in the water)
Size:
Dependent on sex and subspecies, but generally around 1-1.5 metres long and 20-45kg in weight
Behaviour:
Banggai cardinalfish are social and mainly nocturnal, but they are one of the few cardinalfish that may be active during the day
Predators:
Several predators - mainly larger fish
Lifespan:
2.5-3 years
Threats:
The aquarium trade and habitat loss
Conservation status:
Endangered
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