for some reason this debate is closed for me to post replies, so i'm going to start a new thingy to straiten one thing out that all of you, especially charlie missed.
everyone is refering to it as, 'charlie's fish'
i bloody found it
Frazer
x
charlie
cuttlefish
also,
every single angler who posted on my other forum (about 15 individuals) all said tadpole fish...one in very very poor condition.
Sorry charlie
charlie
OK.
A debilitated tadpole fish. That makes sense. That makes perfect sense. Damn, why didn't I realise that... some fish vet I am!
The main reasons that I thought it wasn't a tadpole fish were the shape of the head, its behaviour, the size & the colour. Gus stated from the beginning that colour was a poor indicator & he was right as a change in colour is a common external sign of many disease situations. The shape of the head was my major justification as the tadpole fish that I have seen all had nice rounded heads. The one from the weekend didn't & I guess that was atrophy of the temporal & mandibular muscles due to illness. All of the previous ones I'd seen were constantly moving (in fact my ID book claims that they are practically impossible to photograph!). The change in behaviour of this one could be attributed to it being rather poorly. The larger size of this tadpole fish than others I had seen was probably as it was older (different site, different population).
So, in summary I was wrong, you were right. Apologies to gus & scott & the others who I contradicted. Good to see that gus had the courage of his convictions!
The good part is that as scott stated at least I now have a decent photo of a tadpole fish
Oh, and thanks to the frazer for finding it in the 1st place
