Garish hind (Cephalopholis igarashiensis) is a saltwater species recorded in Taiwan, Malaysia. It is found at depths of 80–250 m.
Scientific name: Cephalopholis igarashiensis · Water: Saltwater
Size: up to 43 cm
The garish hind is a serranid of the genus Cephalopholis and a rare deep-water species; one specimen was taken at 250 m off Tahiti in French Polynesia. It feeds on fishes and crustaceans. It occurs in the Indo-West Pacific between roughly 36 degrees north and 18 degrees south and from 117 degrees east to 147 degrees west, from 80 to 250 m, and does not migrate. It reaches about 43 cm total length, commonly 25 cm. It is taken mainly by subsistence fisheries and by game fishers, and sells in the highest price band, with a trophic level of 4, low to moderate fishing vulnerability at 26 of 100, and medium resilience.
The body is deep — deeper than the head is long — and the standard length is 2.0 to 2.4 times the depth of the body. The dorsal profile of the head is straight, or only marginally concave, as far as beyond the eye, while the nape is distinctly convex. The preopercle is rounded with fine serrations along its edges; the serrations on the ventral margin are a little less fine and so look more irregular, and all of them remain enclosed within the skin. The dorsal fin carries 9 spines and 14 soft rays, the anal fin 3 spines and 9 soft rays, and the caudal fin is rounded. The overall colour of adults is reddish-orange with seven wide, lemon-yellow bars on the upper flanks that run onto the dorsal fin, plus three wide, irregular yellow oblique stripes on the head — which is where the "seven-banded" part of its name comes from. Juveniles are yellower and darken on the lower body; they carry several white bars, a large black eyespot on the soft-rayed part of the dorsal fin, blackish pelvic fins and a black area at the base of the anal fin. It is found mainly in the Western Pacific, as far north as Japan, east to Fiji and French Polynesia and south to Australia — Scott Reef in Western Australia and the Arafura Sea off the Northern Territory — and also around Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean. It is a demersal species of steep reef slopes.
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