Tinker’s butterflyfish is one of the most highly sought after Chaetodon species so a hybrid of this magnificent fish is quite a sight to behold. The image of the hybrid Tinker’s butterflyfish above was shared with us by Wayne’s Ocean World and it’s an incredible blend of the coloration of Chaetodon tinkeri and Chaetodon quadrimaculatus.
The Tinker’s x Fourspot butterflyfish hybrid shows an exceptional amount of orange color in this image, and it’s hard to know how this appeared in real life or whether this was an artifact of digital photography settings, although C. quadrimaculatus does have some brown-orange-yellow color which could have turned citrus in the hybridization process. Wayne’s Ocean World obtained this fish from a diver who collected it all by itself in only 30 feet of water on the leeward side of Oahu.