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Nocturnal fish. At night the schools of clay active species break up and the fish take refuge In holes in the reef. They are replaced by nocturnal species such as the cardinalfishes (family Apogonidae), bigeyes (family Priacanthidae), and squirrelfishes or soldierfishes (family Holocentridae), which feast on the abundant night plankton.

One of the most interesting families of fish to come out at night are the flashlight fishes (family Anomalopidae). These delightful littleblack fish have special organs under their eyes which contain million of light-producing bacteria. The fish are able to cover and uncover these organs to produce characteristic flashes of blue-green light. The function of these lights is not fully undertood but they are probably udrd to communicate, to see by, and perhaps to confuse predators,

Two species of flashlight fish are found in Indonesia. The most often seen is Anomalops kataptron, a 6-8 centimeter fish that forages for plankton in shallow reef waters, often in large schools. (Anomalops also occurs in a much larger—27 centimeters—deepwater form that lives in up to 400 meters of water.) Photoblepharon palpebratus is rare and tends to occur in relatively small groups in deep caves.