Chaetodontoplus niger is the phantom of the angelfish world, being predominantly colored an inky black; sans the yellow and white caudal and ventral fins respectively. This fish is very elusive and rare, and is almost never seen, or photographed until last year when a few videos of it surfaced out of the blue. Just as sudden as it appeared, news of C. niger disappeared back into the abyss. Until now.
This is the newest picture of C. niger photographed in the wild waters of Japan by Akamatsu Divers, a japanese diving blog. There have been some questionable pictures in the past of C. niger appearing in the aquarium trade once, but we’re not clear if it is true. The only chance to see the fish is in rare sporadic photographs that appear now and then. It appears that this species doesn’t grow very large based on the size of all pictured specimens so far. That, or they are all juveniles and the adults are rarer.
