We don’t really need much of a reason to share with you some fabulous pictures of exquisite reef fish, but when we got these pictures of a juvenile Japanese pygmy angelfish, Centropyge interrupta, well we knew they’d be posted up with a quickness. As with the crescent tail fairy wrasse and the neon yellow Halcuria anemone, the Japanese pygmy angelfish is the product of some recent exports from Japan which have made their way all over the world, especially Asia and North america.
Not only are Japanese pygmy angelfish super rare outside of Japan but juveniles are even more so. Usually C. interrupta in aquaria are much larger, like those not-so-pygmy Japanese angelfish we visited at LiveAquaria a couple of years ago. If you really want a small Japanese pygmy angelfish now is the time to get one because until Frank Baesnch ramps up his production of captive bred angelfish again, seeing small C. interrupta angelfish in aquaria is likely to remain a biennial event. Thanks to Zach Lyn of The FishCube for sharing his beautiful photographs of the Japanese pygmy angelfish, and a juvenile Japanese butterflyfish is thrown in at the end just because.