Some minor mutations in reef fish might give a specimen an extra bar, a broken stripe, or a weird inflection on the overall color but this black face regal blue tang has a mutation which adds a lot of character. Paracanthurus hepatus normally has a black body marking that extends just to the eye, but in this particular specimen the black marking extends beyond the eye, all the way to the mouth, transforming this regal blue into a masked character.
We’ve seen or heard about regal blue tangs that were all blue, all black, blue eyed and yellow-bellied but this ‘bandit blue tang’ has a novel mutation that really to adds to the personality of this already very friendly species. Congrats to Joseph Valentino of Austin, Texas who has been keeping and growing the bandit surgeonfish for over three years, we can’t wait to see how cool it will look when it is eight inches long.
