Tag Archives: basslet

 Good morning from the ABC Islands!! I have a real treat for you all today especially for my fish collectors out there. This is the mega-rare, Golden Basslet, Liopropoma aberrans or we call them here, the Eyestripe Bass. Your looking at one of the rarest, most beautiful fish ever brought up from the depths and to date we have only found and collected 10!! This is an adult male, the juveniles are completely yellow with just a faint orange glow on their bellies, as they get older they get more of this beautiful orangish-red color to their bodies. These are found and collected by our new 1000 foot submersible called the “Curasub” at www.substation-curacao.com We find these fish in little caves or parked next to solitary stones, never near the walls. They seem to love areas near sandy slopes or little rubble piles the most and are always found hidden behind rocks most likely so they can ambush prey. This species like other basslets is very shy and solitary, we sometimes will see two in one area but they are always spaced 10-15 feet apart.  They are found at depths between 450 and 800 feet and researchers are thinking there could be two or three different species yet to be found. Once brought to the surface which takes about a week, they are taken into our deep-water lab (it’s very cold in there) and fed live mysis (type of tiny shrimp) which they seem to love. Like other basslets they also feed on just about anything that moves and are very aggressive hunters. So if your reading this and all ready thinking, “I gotta have one”, be prepared to shell out around $6,000!!!  Yes, you read that right, in fact the first one brought up ended up selling for over five figures!!! I have been told that these fish can live a long time and they seem to do well in captivity, they just need plenty of places to hide and lots of live things to eat!! I am off to the sea, we have two sub runs today!! Have a wonderful day, Barry/www.coralreefphotos.com MORE: Golden Basslet, Liopropoma aberrans, Eyestripe Bass… More:

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