The Tuberculated Frogfish or Bandfin Frogfish (Antennatus tuberosus) is one of the rarer found Frogfish species in Lembeh Strait. This one is actually even the first one i have ever seen here. So obviously we were quite excited when one of our guides came back to the resort and asked us to check a guests camera as he found a frogfish he hadn’t seen before. The little bugger turned out to be a Antennatus tuberosus and luckily it was still on the same place when we went back to check. There where even two … a slightly bigger one and a smaller one. There were also two Bumblebee Shrimps in the same coral boulder, which would usually be a highlight of a dive … but in this case the two frogfish clearly were the main attraction. It takes a extremely skilled dive guide to find one of those frogfishes and a very gentle one to be careful enough while “tickling” it out of its hard coral. But it clearly is a spectacular Frogfish and we hope to find more of them.
The Tuberculated Frogfish is widely spread throughout the indopacific region. But it lives very cryptic and only grows to about 7 cm in length. It stays hidden under or within hard corals and therefor is very hard to find. Its rod (Illicium) is much longer as the second spine and has no lure (esca) at its end. It has a dark-brown band on its tail and a characteristic marble pattern.
