Showing posts with label Whitesaddle Goatfish. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Whitesaddle Goatfish. Show all posts

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Goatfish


Goatfish or Weke (pronounced veh keh in Hawaiian), Waikiki, Hawaii. No idea why they call these goatfish but they have these cute little whiskers or "barbels" that they use to dust through the sand and scare up crustaceans for dinner. They normally hang out in little schools of 5-20 fish.

Friday, January 02, 2009

The Uncommonly Delicious Kumu


The Whitesaddle Goatfish, Parupeneus porphyreus, or Kumu in Hawaiian. This one was under a coral ledge in Waikiki.

Kumu is one of the most popular and, these days, uncommon of the goatfish in Hawaii. Its soft, flaky, white meat is treasured in Hawaii and, even when I was a kid, was considered quite a catch when you could find one. You don't see many anymore, probably doomed by their own tastiness. The ancient Hawaiians offered kumu to the gods because of their red color, which was meaningful for rituals. The few I saw were hiding under coral ledges as opposed to their more free ranging goatfish cousin, the moana, which could be seen freely roaming the reef during the day.