When I see very red fish hanging around in deep recesses in the rocks, I assume they’re soldierfishes. That’s what I thought this was, so I was a bit puzzled when I couldn’t identify what kind of soldierfish it was.
It was much later that I was thumbing through my fish identification book, looking for something else, and happened on the pages for bigeyes. I’d never heard of them before. There were only two listed and this one is the common bigeye. It’s most easily distinguished by its slightly convex tail, as opposed to the slightly concave tail of the other one, the Hawaiian bigeye.
Graham's Island 
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Could be a goldfish’s relative 😋 I’m horrible at identifying fish, flowers, birds… not patient enough to do the work, probably. Love how bright he is – but does that make him easy prey?
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Funny you should ask that, because my fish book says their red color makes them more difficult to see at night, which is when they’re active (they’re resting when I see them in the daytime). That’s because red wavelengths are rapidly absorbed by seawater, meaning they reflect little light at night or at depth.
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Oh, that makes sense! Good camouflage then, even though they are bright red!
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Brilliant coloring!
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Thanks. They are pretty bright.
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