A boldly banded sole that ripples over open sand after dark and reads as a flatworm.
A right-eyed sole to about 18 cm, banded across the body in alternating dark brown-black and cream, with the dorsal and anal fins running unbroken round the whole margin and finished in orange-yellow with a line of small pale blue spots along the edge. The body is thin, flexible and held flat to the bottom. The peacock sole Pardachirus pavoninus, the other sole seen regularly on these slopes, is spotted with dark-ringed ocelli rather than banded and is a heavier, rounder animal. Species within Soleichthys are separated on band counts and on the form of the tubular front nostril, neither of which is much use underwater, so a banded sole from this region is usually left at Soleichthys heterorhinos with the qualification understood. Small individuals are regularly reported as polyclad flatworms, and the resemblance is close in both colour and the way the animal moves.
Buried by day and active over open sand and silt at night, feeding on small worms, crustaceans and other benthic invertebrates. It moves by passing a continuous ripple along the fin fringe rather than by swimming, which produces the same gliding motion a large flatworm makes; the resemblance to toxic Pseudoceros and Pseudobiceros flatworms has been suggested as mimicry, though the case rests on appearance and behaviour rather than on any demonstrated protection. Recorded from about 3 to 25 m. It is a night-dive animal almost exclusively, and it will keep moving under a light rather than freezing, which is the usual reason a photograph of one is blurred.
Ratings are per location: 1 means found on most dives that look for it, 5 means a handful of records. Where enough dives have been logged the figure is calculated from them; otherwise it is an editorial estimate, and says so. We publish habitat and destination, not the dive site.
