Is this fish for real or a hoax

A buddy of mine from Kenya asked that I help ID this fish. Hope someone can tell me what this is or if it turns up on some hoax website. Thanks:

Well, look at the date at the bottom of the picture 9-14-06. Perhaps this fish will not be discovered untill next year.

You didn't say where the picture came from but I think it's the armored sea robin Peristedion miniatum Goode 1880 which is found on the east coast of the US.

Agree w/ Leslie. We used to catch some weird deepwater fish when I worked on a fishing boat. Looks like a combo sea-robin / chimera eh?

Cheers

James

Yep, armored sea robin, here is some additional info if you need:

http://www.gma.org/fogm/Peristedion_miniatum.htm

And a large picture:

http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/kunkel/fi...AL0503_3248.JPG

For some more bizarre fish go to http://www.cannondale.ru/zboard/messages/8843.html

At one time these pictures were claimed to be deep sea fish thrown up by the recent tsunami but that was a hoax. They are real deep sea fish however!

It looks like a Plecostomas species.

Hi Quantim,

Plecostomas is a general name given to South American freshwater catfishes, is this what you are referring to? We may have gotten the species wrong, but the photo posted by Scubadru is certainly a sea robin, and not a catfish.

It was actually fished out in Kenya, specifically near Malindi. The sea robin looks closest but maybe an Indian Ocean variation?

Ok, if it is from Kenya it must be Peristedion weberi, the Indian Ocean sea robin (I think this is the common name, but I am not sure). This species is widely distributed in the western Indian Ocean and its description matches the photo.

I should probably have put some sort of joking text in with that one. It was a long day. The correct term would also be Loricariidae.

It looks like a plastic fish you'd get at an aquarium store. It's resting pretty stiffly...representing plastic.

Joe