Flasher wrasses are ubiquitously distributed around Indian and Pacific Oceans. With their bright colors, fondness of relatively shallow depths and living in large congregations, it’s not difficult to spot them in the wild and hence, new species are not often described these days. Many species of Paracheilinus bear the trademark filamentous dorsal fin, be it Read More

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When we hear about sharks in the wild, we tend to hear negative stories discussing their decline in the wild or the negative impact on shark finning, but some positive news appeared recently when a team of scientists announced their discovery of a new shark species found in the waters off the Galapagos Islands Read More

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Blastomussa loyae was first described from the Red Sea in 1978 as a separate species from Blastomussa merleti due to the separated walls and ‘irregular voids’ in the corallites of colonies. Blastomussa loyae was first discovered growing in abundance alongside B. merleti but although the species was first accepted as distinct, Stephen Cairns and Charles Veron subsequently classified Read More

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Pseudosiderastrea formosa is a newly described species of stony coral that is so far only known from shallow coastal waters of Taiwan. The new Pseudosiderastrea formosa is an encrusting species of stony coral which is related to the extremely hardy Siderastrea stony corals which are fairly common in shallow waters of the Caribbean and west Atlantic Read More

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Bryaninops discus and B. spongicolus are two new fish from the Red Sea which will probably be followed by a lot more descriptions over the coming year. In preparation for the publication of the ultimate guide to Red Sea reef fishes, Fishes of the Red Sea, John Randall and his colleagues has been busy describing as many Read More

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Pseudochromis ammeri and Pseudochromis eichleri are two new species of dottybacks which have just been described from the Philippines and Indonesia. Both Pseudochromis ammeri and P. eichleri are described as species of striped dottybacks, similar to each other in appearance as well as Pseudochromis colei, which is redescribed in the same paper.  Read More

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Giganthias serratospinosus is a brand new species to be described from Lombok, Indonesia by William White and Dharmadi. Giganthias used to be a monotypic genus with only one member, G. immaculatus, that is until now. The range of G. immaculatus spans from Japan to Taiwan, but the new G. serratospinosus is an indo-pacific species, and Read More

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Synchiropus tudorjonesi is a new species of red colored dragonet that is most closely related to Synchiropus morrisoni from the Western Pacific. Synchiropus tudorjonesi is described from four specimens collected in Cenderawasih Bay, Indonesia but it is also known from photographs in Bali. Although Synchiropus tudorjonesi looks similar to Synchiropus morrisoni with is overall reddish Read More

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2011 brought us a ton of new reef fish species and although coral species and new aquairum strains come about at a crawling pace, this year was an exceptionally good one for a broad range of corals of all types. From new species of corals that are we’ve yet to see because they’ve just been Read More

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Pseudochromis fuligifinis is a cute new species of dottyback described from Mindoro Province and Apo Reef of the Philippines by Anthony Gill and Jeffrey Williams. The new Pseudochromis fuligifinis looks very similar to the elongate dottyback, Pseudochromis elongatus, but the half-moon shaped dark marking in the tail is a distinguishing characteristic. The original description of P. fuligifinis makes no Read More

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