Flying gurnard

Photo: Rodrigo Maia-Nogueira · © all rights reserved

Flying gurnards are extraordinary bottom-dwelling fish that walk across the sand on modified pectoral fin rays and deploy enormous, fan-like pectoral wings to startle predators. At Pollard Bay they are found in the rubble zones between reef and sand, where their cryptic grey-brown coloration makes them effectively invisible until the wings flash open to reveal brilliant electric-blue spotted patterning. They feed on small crustaceans and molluscs by probing the substrate with their modified ventral rays, which function as sensory and locomotory appendages.