Letter from RMBR Curator of Fishes

Upon hearing of the Comet sighting in Hantu on Jan 2, 2005; curator of fishes at the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity, Kelvin Lim writes:

Wow, what a haul of goodies on your first dive of the year! The sighting of the comet is an excellent one, and the second in Singapore to my knowledge.

I first came across the presence of this fish in Singapore waters in the coffee table book produced by the NSS Marine Conservation Group the year before, Unveiling Our Seas. There's a nice picture of a specimen photographed locally. The absence of earlier records appear to be due to its secretive nature, and its preference for deeper waters. Therefore it can't be easily caught by nets, and it is unlikely to be found at low tide on reef flats. If you've been snooping around aquarium shops selling marine fish, you'd have known that the Comet is a popular ornamental fish. The best way to catch this species would be to use poison, but that will be destructive. And I think cyanide is what collectors use in the Philippines used to obtain this species for the aquarium trade. When I first saw the picture in that book, I had a nagging suspicion that it could have been a released pet.

However, bearing in mind that the absence of earlier records could have been due to difficulty in finding this fish, the present sighting does strongly indicate that it is a genuine native species. Coooool!

Thanks!
KELVIN

The Hantu Blog always shares its findings with the scientific community. This information helps scientists monitor our seas, which in turn gears toward protecting the reef. It's unlikely a comet has only been sighted in Singapore waters twice, but that's probably because most sightings go unreported. If you enjoy our reefs and would like to contribute to its protection and study, report your sightings with notes of depth, time, site and sediment.