Red bandfish

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Red bandfish
Drawing by Dr Tony Ayling
Drawing by Dr Tony Ayling
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Perciformes
Family: Cepolidae
Genus: Cepola
Species: C. haastii
Binomial name
Cepola haastii
(Hector, 1881)

The red bandfish, Cepola haastii, is a bandfish of the family Cepolidae, found on the inner continental shelf around New Zealand. Its length is between 15 and 25 cm.

The red bandfish is an elongate fish with the body tapering to a point with no separate tail. The dorsal and anal fins run the length of the body from just behind the head, becoming continuous where a tail would normally be. Large eyes dominate the head and small pointed teeth fill the wide mouth, well suited to grasping the small crustaceans which these fish feed on.

They live buried in the soft bottom sediments and are rarely seen.

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