The narrow fish that looks like a tree leaf is the shrimpfish. They eat zooplanktons with their mouth that looks like a straw. They don’t have any scales but instead have hard board-like shells around its body.

They live in coral reefs and rocky areas of Indian Ocean and West Pacific Ocean south of SagamiBay. They can grow up to be 15 cm in length.

Most of the time, they swim with their head hanging low, but when in danger, they straighten their heads and swim very fast. They live in colonies, sometimes, hundreds of them. The shrimpfish displayed here were captured along the coast of AmamiOshima.