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Genicanthus takeuchii or Takeuchii’s swallowtail angelfish is one of the most highly sought after angelfish in the world. Hailing only from Japan’s Ogasawara Islands, Genicanthus takeuchii has an even more limited track record than the peppermint angelfish, Paracentropyge boylei, second in rarity only to the Ballina angelfish, Chaetodontoplus ballinae. Our Japanese aquarium correspondent Taka Kamata was keen to send over the links for these first ever videos of G. takeuchii doing it’s swallowtail angelfish thing in the Ogasawara Islands. As far as we know, these are the only videos of this Pomacanthid gem available on the net. The first video is short but close up and the second video is a little bit longer but a little distance removed. The specimen in the video is a small juvenile which hasn’t yet developed either the adult female or male coloration for the species, both of which are drastically different and much less flamboyant than the outstanding juvenile coloration. Collecting fish for the aquarium trade is explicitly prohibited in the Ogasawara Islands, hence the absolute scarcity of photos and videos of this fish. Both videos featured after the break, photograph above by Kaz Shimoi.

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