Stargazer or Stonefish ?

At 31 meters / 101 feet

Night dive

Footage & photographs :

Stonefish I suspect.
Stargazers are so often buried, the ones I’ve seen don’t have the ‘debris’ developing over it.

Also think, it's a stonefish.

Is it the same fish in the image that is in the video ?

Here are a couple of images, two stargazer and one stonefish. I am inclined to think the two images are of a stargazer.

Diggy, I agree with you.

I still think its a stargazer

The video could be an estuarine stonefish which are known to partially bury, particularly the way it curves its tail, looks like images I've seen of stonefish.

The photos definitely look like stargazers with the upward pointing eyes, there are at least 20 species of stargazer listed in Fishbase, some with very few if any pictures posted.  https://www.fishbase.de/Nomenclature/ScientificNameSearchList.php?crit1_fieldname=SYNONYMS.SynGenus&crit1_fieldtype=CHAR&crit1_operator=EQUAL&crit1_value=Uranoscopus&crit2_fieldname=SYNONYMS.SynSpecies&crit2_fieldtype=CHAR&crit2_operator=CONTAINS&crit2_value=&typesearch=simple&group=summary&backstep=-2&sortby=validname

There are also 5 listed stonefish species in the same family as the estuarine stonefish:  https://www.fishbase.de/summary/FamilySummary.php?ID=578

1 hour ago, ChrisRoss said:

The video could be an estuarine stonefish which are known to partially bury, particularly the way it curves its tail, looks like images I've seen of stonefish.

The photos definitely look like stargazers with the upward pointing eyes, there are at least 20 species of stargazer listed in Fishbase, some with very few if any pictures posted.  https://www.fishbase.de/Nomenclature/ScientificNameSearchList.php?crit1_fieldname=SYNONYMS.SynGenus&crit1_fieldtype=CHAR&crit1_operator=EQUAL&crit1_value=Uranoscopus&crit2_fieldname=SYNONYMS.SynSpecies&crit2_fieldtype=CHAR&crit2_operator=CONTAINS&crit2_value=&typesearch=simple&group=summary&backstep=-2&sortby=validname

There are also 5 listed stonefish species in the same family as the estuarine stonefish:  https://www.fishbase.de/summary/FamilySummary.php?ID=578

 

thank you, Chris

I do not know what it is then

14 hours ago, hedonist222 said:

thank you, Chris

I do not know what it is then

You could look through the species in Fishbase and rule out species not listed in or close to your area to narrow it down.  Then google each species to see if you can find more images.

I am assuming the video and the stills are a different fish, they certainly don't look like the same species.

You could post them on iNaturalist to see if anyone there can come up with an ID.

1 hour ago, ChrisRoss said:

You could look through the species in Fishbase and rule out species not listed in or close to your area to narrow it down.  Then google each species to see if you can find more images.

I am assuming the video and the stills are a different fish, they certainly don't look like the same species.

You could post them on iNaturalist to see if anyone there can come up with an ID.

The photographs and video were taken months apart.

But I am fairly certain it is the same fish.

Months ago I saw two next to each other.

The video from a week ago was of one only.

I think its the same fish because the site is a 101 foot seabed wreck dive in the middle of the sea.

Theres nothing around the wreck except sand.

The video was taken in the exact location I found it months ago. Really, within 1 foot away maybe.

18 minutes ago, hedonist222 said:

The photographs and video were taken months apart.

But I am fairly certain it is the same fish.

Months ago I saw two next to each other.

The video from a week ago was of one only.

I think its the same fish because the site is a 101 foot seabed wreck dive in the middle of the sea.

Theres nothing around the wreck except sand.

The video was taken in the exact location I found it months ago. Really, within 1 foot away maybe.

 

OK, very odd, I would suggest signing up to iNaturalist and posting there, you might get a better indication of what it is exactly.

Yes - it looks like the fish significantly grew in the three months since the photograph.

I'll try iNaturalist.

Thank you, Chris.

They do look like the same fish from the markings around the eyes, but I wasn’t aware that they were taken so many months apart. The behaviour and algae growth on their surfaces can change a lot in that time.

The description in Fishbase is quite good - thank you ChrisRoss, especially about the warty tubercles and pectoral fins (stargazer’s point backwards a bit more and can have spines on the gill covers).

The white-ish coloured fish in diggy’s first photo is more likely a scorpionfish actually. I suspect maybe a relatively juvenile S. diabolus, although sometimes called a Devil Stonefish or False Stonefish. You can see the spine on the gill cover in the two photos of the stargazers.

Here's a bit of stargazer footage from ~6 years ago. It illustrates a swimming style quite different from that of a stonefish. Try to see it in 4K if you can: https://youtu.be/j-b1YXA1iOc

On 3/3/2021 at 1:53 PM, Greenjuice said:

They do look like the same fish from the markings around the eyes, but I wasn’t aware that they were taken so many months apart. The behaviour and algae growth on their surfaces can change a lot in that time.

 

The description in Fishbase is quite good - thank you ChrisRoss, especially about the warty tubercles and pectoral fins (stargazer’s point backwards a bit more and can have spines on the gill covers).

 

The white-ish coloured fish in diggy’s first photo is more likely a scorpionfish actually. I suspect maybe a relatively juvenile S. diabolus, although sometimes called a Devil Stonefish or False Stonefish. You can see the spine on the gill cover in the two photos of the stargazers.

Yes exactly. I posted that one cause it was closest to what my eyes discerned in the video. The other two stargazers certainly.