Author: Christine Dell'Amore
Source: National Geographic
June 28, 2012

"Known from only a single, deep reef off Indonesia, this "beautiful" fairy basslet is 1 of 25 new coral reef fish species making their debuts this month in a three-volume book set,Reef Fishes of the East Indies.

Among the new fish, the basslet, Pseudanthias mica, is a favorite of co-author Mark V. Erdmann, who named it after his daughter Mica, an avid diver at age 12.

"Fairy basslets, though closely related to groupers, are small plankton feeders that usually occur in groups of tens to occasionally hundreds, and the males [are] especially very brightly pastel-colored," said Erdmann, a Conservation International marine biologist, via email."

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