ID this fish off Malaga, Spain

[TTA]

Does anyone know what fish this is?

We were diving near Malaga off the south coast of Spain in about 5m of water when we saw this swimming in a patch of seagrass (water temp was about 20 degrees celcius and there was little current). It was about 20cm-30cm long and spent most of its time in a small clearing in the seagrass swimming with its head up in a vertical position (as in the second picture; it's in different positions in other pics as I probably disturbed it when I was taking photos). It stayed in this position for a while and did not attempt to burrow into the sand or hide. It was well aware of us but unafraid and when I was taking photos swam aggressively towards my camera.

Local divers had not seen it before either.

Sorry the pics aren't very good but hope they illustrate the fish!

 

[isurus]

Congratulations - good photos of a bit of an oddity I think:
Cepola macrophthalma (Red bandfish)

http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/speciesSummary.php?ID=56&genusname=Cepola&speciesname=macrophthalma

 

[Jason Ooi]

Good photo...I never seen before

 

[Amy B]

Nice photos - what camera were you using?

Definately looks like a redband fish to me (I've never seen one personally but I know where some of their burrows are!).

Pics here: http://www.marlin.ac.uk/demo/cepolarubescens.htm

And here: http://www.marlin.ac.uk/php/image_viewer.php?images=Ceprub2&topic=Species

 

[TTA]

Thanks everyone! I knew that someone would definitely know on here. And thanks for your kind comments on my photography.

Amy - I use the Olympus c5060WZ. You can also tell that I had my Inon macro lens on at the time I took the pics as they have quite a bit of distortion on the edges.

I feel so lucky to have seen one swimming outside of its burrow as it seems from the websites that it hides most of the time!

 

[AlaskaDiver]

Nice photos. It's a redband fish. Check out this website. http://64.95.130.5/summary/SpeciesSummary.php?id=56