Strange Predator Fish

Was at the LFS today and saw this guy inching his was across the bottom of their coral tank, never seen him before. So I asked the fish dude about him and he hadn't seen it before either.

fish looked dying at first glance, it had a odd serpentine and very slow crawling motion across the sand. but was changing color according to sand and shadows.

about 5 minutes later it snapped at a copepod or similar.

Totally ugly and totally cool!

Any Ideas?...

 

I came across this on liveaquaria earlier today...could this be it?

Saltwater Aquarium Fish for Marine Aquariums: Orangebanded Stingfish

edit: if it is..it's poisonous! lol watch out!

 

No, thats not it, it has a pretty regular shaped body, even bordering on boring, like a blenny without the cool pectoral fins.

 

i dont know then...thing sure is ugly though lol

 

I'm a snail guy, not a fish guy, and the pics don't show a lot of detail, but...it looks a lot like a juvenile Dragon Wrasse to me, or maybe something in the same genus if it's not that species?

 

looks pretty battered... unless thats its natural "helpless prey" type look which may aid it in the wild... but I would stick with the notion that it IS actually helpless prey lol. Would be interested to see what happens to it over the following few days. But yes, pagojoe might be right about it being some sort of wrasse. Not sure about it being a juvenile dragon wrasse due to how off the colors would be, as well as some battering of the dorsal fins... Anyone have any ideas?

 

Yeah, I agree. There are some pics of juveniles showing the purple color, but after I took idunn's pics and tweaked them I can see that none of the typical pattern for that species is evident, and it shows up on every pic I can find of the juveniles. Hopefully one of the fishie experts will drop by soon.

 

Has a head of a scorpion fish....
There are over 1300 varities of scorpions so could be one...however the body is different then the ones I have seen.

Would describe why it was crawling on the ground and why it is so drab...they are awesome to watch though when they are eating. The first one I had was an Ambion scorpion. He would sit there and rock back and forth as he approached food, and then BOOM...grab it.

I now have an orange scorpion and he just sits there and in a blink of an eye he snatches it up whole.

I am not sure but maybe a spotted scorpion

http://www.pbs.org/oceanrealm/seadwellers/survivaldwellers/scorpionfish1.html

though I would hope the LFS would know that they have a scorpion in their coral tank.....are venomous and some more so then others...majority of them will only cause severe pain while some have been known to be more venoumous...ie the ambon scorpion and stonefish

I am probably way off!!! But scorpion jumped to my mind based on the head

 

Baby stonefish????? The head looks too small for one. However, the dorsal spines, the fact that it walks on it's pectoral fins, and the coloration are all stonefish traits.

 

Ummm........the Lfs doesn't know what they have?