Fish ID

[Snow_Phoenix]

I dropped by my LFS and spotted some unique fish - silver body with a very prominent spike at the top. I've never seen them before, and I'm curious as to what they are:

 

Anyone have any ideas?

 

Shipment is from Sri Lanka. 

[Tired]

Oh, that's interesting. Something about the body shape makes me think it's probably a baby of something very big. It almost looks like a triggerfish, with the fin structure, but I don't think that's right. 

[Tamberav]

I am guessing a filefish? The tail is strange though.

[Tired]

Ooh, good thought. Filefish I've seen look rougher, but maybe smooth filefish are also a thing. 

[Ratvan]

31 minutes ago, Tamberav said:

I am guessing a filefish? The tail is strange though.

I thought the same with that spine

[Joevember]

Reminds me of a mojarra. I used to catch them down in florida.

The longer spine leans more toward a filefish though.

[Snow_Phoenix]

10 hours ago, Tired said:

Oh, that's interesting. Something about the body shape makes me think it's probably a baby of something very big. It almost looks like a triggerfish, with the fin structure, but I don't think that's right. 

 

9 hours ago, Tamberav said:

I am guessing a filefish? The tail is strange though.

 

8 hours ago, Ratvan said:

I thought the same with that spine

 

8 hours ago, Joevember said:

Reminds me of a mojarra. I used to catch them down in florida.

The longer spine leans more toward a filefish though.

Hi everyone - thank you so much for the replies! I tried googling up various types of filefish, but all of them had 'rounded' tails. 

 

Then one odd pic. was mixed in with all the filefish pics and aha! Found it! 😊

 

It's actually called a tripod fish:

 

 

Unusual guy, but I did a bit more digging and it's basically a cross between a puffer & filefish in terms of behavior. It eats smaller fish, and can be found in the Indian ocean as well as the Indo-Pac region - some divers in Singapore have found it near the coast of the island and they 'sleep' in the seagrass, like filefish do. 

 

Thanks for all the pointers though! Wouldn't have found it without the 'filefish' discussion. 😊👍

[Tamberav]

Tripod fish... two spines on the bottom, one on top. Makes sense!!

 

Also, when I googled just tripod fish I came across this. The ocean never disappoints to show something new.  

 

 

[Tired]

Ah, interesting. Looks like it's probably too big for most tanks, so that's too bad. 

 

I actually have a model of one of those deepsea ones. Interesting fish- they balance on those fins, facing into the current, and wait for food to come by. Seems like a good candidate for public aquaria, if someone could manage to bring one up alive. They also have a very interesting trick they can do, where one can lay eggs and then scatter sperm to fertilize its own eggs, if it can't find a mate.