Underwater life: Hawkfish
Most definitely the clowns of the underwater world. Wikipedia rather boringly describes them as 'strictly tropical, perciform marine fish of the family Cirrhitidae.' Well yes that does explain their taxonomy but rest assured Hawkfish are fish with attitude. Who are you looking at? Hawkfish don't back down easily There is one species that we come across (I think, as I am no expert in identifying fish) on our dives off Colombo and that is the Pixy Hawfish (Cirrhitichthys oxycephalus). This also appears to come in two flavours, the usual spotted kind and a more solid colour morph which is sort of orange with faint spots to be seen sometimes. You will often see them perched amongst corals or a parts of a ship, looking out like a lord looking over its domain. Apparently this habit of superciliously peering around is what inspired their common name, 'hawkfish.' The spotted version of the Pixy Hawkfish doing what it does best, hawking I used to see these fish quite freq...