Maybe it's Maybelline

Natural History, July-August, 2002 by Judy Rice

Varied and wonderful, the successful life-forms of our planet are exquisitely shaped by evolutionary forces, honed by competition, physically fine-tuned to their environment, and so on. What, then, can one make of a creature that looks tike it was designed by a committee of comedians or as though it evolved in a theatrical prop room? The rosy-lipped batfish, for example. This individual photographed near Cocos Island off the Pacific side of Costa Rica, is a member of a species endemic to Cocos. (Its closest relative, the red-lipped batfish, lives near the Galapagos Islands.)

Batfishes are indeed fish, and when seen from above may look like bats, but probably more like splayed frogs with tails. The unicorn effect on the head is a snout. "It's firm," says ichthyologist and batfish expert John McCosker, "sort of like chicken gristle," and it protects a thin, retractable appendage that the batfish deploys to lure small edible fishes. The legs (they're pectoral fins, really) allow batfishes to crawl about the seafloor. They are reluctant swimmers and, according to McCosker, prefer to "sit upright, like old tail-dragging airplanes."

While its fringing white bristles may give this species a sensory edge in its preferred habitat--usually more than 125 feet down--the red Mick Jagger lips are harder to fathom. Without an artificial light source, such as a photographer's strobe, red coloring can't be seen at such depths.

These fish are shy, says photographer Avi Klapfer, and tend to turn their back to divers and walk away. Although he couldn't get this rosy-lip to smile, Klapfer managed, after half an hour, to capture this portrait.

Born in northern Israel, Avi Klapfer ("The Natural Moment," page 78) has lived in the United States, Costa Rica, and Palau, Micronesia. He discovered diving and boating in the Red Sea while serving in the Israeli navy but began taking underwater photos in the 1980s as a dive-boat operator in Palau. Klapfer first came upon rosy-lipped batfish in 1993, on a dive to a depth of about a hundred feet--relatively shallow for the fish but relatively deep for a human. To photograph these shy, sedentary subjects, he planned a special dive and captured the aloof individual featured in this issue after following it for half an hour. Using two underwater strobes, he took the picture with the only camera he has ever owned--a manual Nikon F-3 in Aquatica housing--and a Nikon 55mm macrolens.