Fiji - Curious Longfin Spadefishes

Longfin Spadefish are also known as Teira Batfish.
If you look at them from the side, they are in disc-shaped triangular. if you look at them from the front, you can see their compressed bodies. They have quite a funky look. They are in silver or grey or brownish colour with a dark to faint bar through the eye and another bar from front of dorsal fin to ventral fin. This species of batfish can be easily recognised by their large dark blotch above rear edge of ventral fin. Typically you would see them in groups.

The first time I encountered them was at Purple Wall, Rainbow Reef where the dive site supposed to have amazing soft coral. But I was totally distracted by these curious and incredible longfin spadefishes, they became my highlight for the dive.

At first, there were a few of them approached us and swam around us. As the dive went along they started appearing in greater and greater numbers. There were mixture of juveniles and adults. Juveniles have very long dorsal fins and anal fins, they become shorter when they grow.

They are such a curious creature and they are not shy at all, they came so close to me, literally right in front of my face, to check on us, they then turned around and came back again. Such an elegant fish with its body sharp and its shining body. 
One of them followed us for half of the dive, swam around all of us and checked on everyone. Basically, I saw them for my whole dive. Their behaviour is just so cool! 

Later into my dive, I saw a huge school of them at the depth around 40 meter (~130 ft). The school size was countless, I guess there was more than 100 of them. It was incredible! My dive guide said it may be their mating season. It was such an incredible experience.

I encountered few of them again the other time diving at Purple Wall, I guess some of them are resident there.