Bigeye Bass, Baldwinella eos
Bigeye Bass, Baldwinella eos. Fish caught from coastal waters off Point Palmilla, Baja California Sur, May 2015. Length: 19.4 cm (7.6 inches).
Bigeye Bass, Baldwinella eos. Fish caught from coastal waters at a depth of 165 m (550 feet) off Los Barriles, Baja California Sur, March 2024. Length 19.6 cm (7.7 inches). Catch and photograph courtesy of Chip Shapley, Los Barilles.
Bigeye Bass, Baldwinella eos. Fish caught from coastal waters off Los Barriles, Baja California Sur, October 2022. Length 19.8 cm (7.8 inches). Catch and photograph courtesy of Nick Morenc, Mission Viejo, California.
Bigeye Bass, Baldwinella eos. A most unusual sighting of relatively large Bigeye Bass being offered for sale by Fresko Mercado, San José del Cabo, Baja California Sur, September 2019. Length: ca. 23 cm (9.1 inches).
The Bigeye Bass, Baldwinella eos, is a member of the Sea Bass or Serranidae Family, and is known in Mexico as serrano ojón. Note: the Bigeye Bass was formally reclassified in 2012 from the Pronotogrammus Genus to the Baldwinella Genus. Globally, there are three species in the genus Pronotogrammus, all of which are found in Mexican waters, one in the Atlantic and two in the Pacific Ocean. The Bigeye Bass is a member of the Anthias Family, a subfamily of Serranidae, that makes up the majority of the pink, orange, red, and yellow reef fish seen swarming in most coral reef photography and film.
The Bigeye Bass has an elongated oval body that narrow at the tail base. Their head and body are a silvery pink color. They have two dark olive V-shaped colored bars just prior to their dorsal fin and a series of vertically elongated yellowish blotches that extend from the top corner of the operculum along their upper flank and the upper half of their tail base. Their fins are pinkish with small yellow spots on the upper caudal lobe and on the soft dorsal fin. Their heads have convex upper and lower profiles, very large eyes, and a moderately oblique mouth with a projecting lower jaw. Their anal fins have 3 spines and 8 rays; their caudal fins are deeply forked with sharp tips; their dorsal fin has 10 spines and 14 or 15 rays; and, their pectoral fins are long and reach past their anal fin. They are covered with scales.
The Bigeye Bass aggregate over rock, sand, and shell bottoms at depths between 73 m (240 feet) and 305 m (1,000 feet). They reach a maximum length of 23.1 cm (9.1 inches), as documented by a fish that I caught, and weigh less than 450 g (1 lb). The Bigeye Bass is poorly studied with very limited information available about their lifestyle and behavioral patterns including specific details on age, growth, longevity, movement patterns, diet, habitat use, and reproduction.
The Bigeye Bass is a resident of Mexican waters of the Pacific Ocean but has a limited range being found from Santa Rosalia, Baja California Sur, to La Paz, Baja California Sur, in the Sea of Cortez and along the coast of the mainland south to Guatemala. The collection photographed above was made 40 miles north of Cabo San Lucas into the Pacific, documenting a range extension for this species. The first pictured above also extends the southerly range within the Sea of Cortez to the greater Cabo San Lucas area of Baja California Sur.
The Bigeye Bass can be confused with the Hookthroat Bass, Hemanthias signifer (elongated third dorsal spine) and the Splittail Bass, Hemanthias peruanus (elongated third dorsal spine).
From a conservation perspective the Bigeye Bass has not been formally evaluated. They are a small and exceedingly rare deep water species that are seldom seen by humans and therefore of limited interest to most although I have seen them for sale in the fish markets of the greater Los Cabos area.