triggerfish in monterey??

[KRL1973]

Diving a spot between Lovers and the aquarium yesterday and after an excellent dive was snorkelling the shallows on my way in and saw a fish that stood out as not belonging. It was just sitting there so I was able to take a good hard look at it for some time and I'll be damned if it wasn't a triggerfish! I did some reseach today and figure it to be a finescale triggerfish which is supposed to be mainly tropical pacific, but Fishbase.org indicates SF as it's northernmost limit of range so maybe I wasn't hallucinating.

Anyway attached is a stock photo I pulled of the finescale trigger.

Also here is a video clip I took of it yesterday. It looked beat-up and not too happy to be here in monterey.
YouTube - FILE0170_mpeg2video_001.mpg

Anyone else ever seen one of these up here? I searched 'triggerfish monterey' and did find referance on spearboard.com to a trigger being speared last year at Lovers but otherwise I didn't find anything.

-Ken

 

[fisheater]

Wow. Nice find and "documentation."

 

[Anti-Hero]

Nice find. I wonder if those are as ill-tempered as their colorful cousins?

 

[btroxell]

On a fishing site, they have a catagory of 'rare fish' pictures. There is a shot ( A collection of rare fish caught from NCKA.org) of a trigger fish from last year.

Ben

 

[ae3753]

Very nice find.

 

[dannobee]

What's the other fish in the background? I haven't seen one of those, either.

 

[drbill]

We have had finescale triggerfish here off Catalina since at least the 82-84 Elk Nino, possibly earlier. The one you saw may be from larvae transported past Pt Conception during another El Nino pulse. I've not had any luck filming them here (the location is a reserve that doesn't permit SCUBA diving often), but I've gotten a lot of footage of them down in Mexico.

My guess is that due to temperature, they won't be reproductive that far north.

 

[KRL1973]

What's the other fish in the background? I haven't seen one of those, either.

The photo isn't mine and was presumably taken in the fishes normal range, only the video is mine. I included the photo for comparison purposes.

Having said that, I am not sure what the other fish in the background is. Kinda looks like maybe a juvenile hogfish or the like.

-ken

 

[opisthobranch]

The photo isn't mine and was presumably taken in the fishes normal range, only the video is mine. I included the photo for comparison purposes.

Having said that, I am not sure what the other fish in the background is. Kinda looks like maybe a juvenile hogfish or the like.

-ken

The other fish is a juvenile Mexican Hogfish. Bodianus diplotaenia. Had me puzzled for a sec as I thought that was the image from Monterey and there is no way a Mexican Hogfish was in Monterey. But then I looked at the video and realized what you meant. Very interesting find, though that poor fish doesn't look long for this world. Awfully cold up here for a triggerfish.

Clinton

 

[drbill]

Here's one of my very early "Dive Dry with Dr. Bill" newspaper columns on the finescale triggerfish.