Small Triplefin

Description:

Locally known, probably, as 'Pjevčić' - I was unable to confirm any local name for this tiny but attractive fish, I guess it gets overlooked and neglected because of its size (max 5cm) and discreet and well hidden life. The Small Triplefin has an elongated, spindle-shaped body with pointed snout, and tri-partite dorsal fin. The body in both sexes is bright-red to orange-red, with brown to black, heavily spotted, head - spots are whitish to pale blue.

Habitat:

This seems like Mediterranean sea endemic, but relatively common demersal littoral fish in Adriatic. However, it prefers obscure habitats such as faults and narrow crevices, and is often found on ceilings or walls of submerged caves, or semi-caves, like here. Here, observed close to a popular beach in a village of Dubrovnik riviera (Cavtat). The depth in this zone is between 0,5m up to 3m, and then descending sharply down to 10m. The sea bottom here is rocky, creating many crevasses and tunnels, and rocks are abundantly covered in algae. In those deeper waters, there are some large colonies of sea grass.

Notes:

This summer I decided to spend more time snorkelling among rocks close to shores, in search of blennies, gobies and similar rockbottom dwellers. Mission accomplished and I got a load of photos of them - unfortunately, most of them are too blurry, as they are very fast to move and hide, and most often occur as fleeting shadow in my pics... This one was particularly difficult to photograph, as I found it in a shadowy places and under some bigger boulders, hiding well - and it took three visits to the site to get these few low-quality pics.