''Plectranthias ahiahiata'', the sunset perchlet, is a fish of the family

Serranidae Serranidae is a large family (biology), family of fishes belonging to the order Perciformes. The family contains about 450 species in 65 genera, including the sea basses and the groupers (subfamily Epinephelinae). Although many species are small, ...

, subfamily

Anthiinae Anthias are members of the family Anthiadidae in the order Perciformes. The group has also been called Anthiidae or Anthiinae, but these names are preoccupied by a subfamily of ground beetles in the family Carabidae erected by Bonelli in 1813 ...

. It is believed to be endemic to

Rapa Nui Easter Island (, ; , ) is an island and special territory of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle in Oceania. The island is renowned for its nearly 1,000 extant monumental statues, ...

(Easter Island) in the South Pacific. It was discovered at 90m depth during

mesophotic A mesophotic coral reef or mesophotic coral ecosystem (MCE), originally from the Latin word ''meso'' (meaning middle) and ''photic'' (meaning light), is characterized by the presence of both light-dependent coral and algae, and organisms that can ...

coral ecosystem exploration by the deep diving team from the

California Academy of Sciences The California Academy of Sciences is a research institute and natural history museum in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, that is among the largest List of natural history museums, museums of natural history in the world, housing over ...

Etymology

The name "ahiahiata" means "the last moments of light before nightfall" in the Rapa Nui language, and it was given to this fish because it reminded the scientists who discovered it of the sunsets in Easter Island.

References

Fish described in 2018 Plectranthias Taxa named by Bart Shepherd Taxa named by Tyler Phelps Taxa named by Hudson T. Pinheiro Taxa named by Alejandro Pérez-Matus Taxa named by Luiz A. Rocha Fauna of Easter Island Endemic fauna of Chile {{Serranidae-stub