The term 'Perchlet' applies to a wide variety of small Perciform Fish. The genus Plectranthias is a member of the Serranidae, the family which also includes Sea Bass and Groupers, amongst other groups. It currently contains 66 described species from mesophotic reef environments in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. Plectranthias are small Fish, typically 5-10 cm long with the largest species reaching about 20 cm, which live in holes or crevices, from where they ambush small, mobile invertebrates. The small size and cryptic nature of Plectranthias means that they are not well studied, with most species described from a very small number of specimens.
In a paper published in the journal ZooKeys on 16 January 2024, Bart Shepherd of the Steinhart Aquarium at the California Academy of Sciences, Hudson Pinheiro of the Department of Ichthyology at the California Academy of Sciences, and the Center for Marine Biology at the University of São Paulo, Ahmed Najeeb, also of the Department of Ichthyology at the California Academy of Sciences, and of the Maldives Marine Research Institute, Claudia Rocha, again of the Department of Ichthyology and of the Department of Microbiology at the California Academy of Sciences, and Luiz Rocha, once again of the Department of Ichthyology at the California Academy of Sciences, describe a new species of Plectranthias from the Kuramathi Outer Reef on Rasdhoo Atoll in the Maldives.
The new species is described from two specimens collected by hand-netting at a depth of 118 m, in December 2022, and confirmed as a new species by gene-sequencing. It is named Plectranthias raki, where 'raki' means 'feeling shy to confront people' in the Dhivehi language which is spoken in the Maldives.
The two specimens of Plectranthias raki are 66.15 and 70.41 mm long, and pinkish white in colour with a series of irregular orange-red patches, these being more red towards the tail and more yellow towards the head. Both have dorsal fins with fifteen rays, anal fins with seven rays, pectoral fins with thirteen rays, and tail fins with nine upper rays and eight lower rays.
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