Not only is the longfin clownfish from Sea & Reef Aquaculture a real fish, but we’ve also got the video to prove it. The real April Fool’s joke of yesterday’s posting of only the second known longfin clownfish to be documented is that this endowed black Darwin Ocellaris is not only real but it is radically long-finned. The high contrast and black coloration of the teaser pictures of the black Darwin with extra fin-sauce helped to hide the fact the pictures were real, although they could easily be reproduced in photoshopped.
Adding to the mystique of the black Darwin longfin clownfish is the lopsided elongation of its fins with one pectoral fin being completely normal, and the other one draping to the side of him wildly like a cape. The tail fin and soft portion of the dorsal fin are also incredibly enlarged, leading us to wonder how it is that the long fin trait is so extreme in this clownfish, like a gene that has stimulated those fins to grow instead of just slightly longer finnage as is usually the case with freshwater fish.
So what’s next? As we reported yesterday this studly longfin clownfish is already earmarked for Sea & Reef’s breeding program, and it will be only a matter of time until a whole crop of longfin clownfish are available in a black ocellaris clownfish, and we’re really curious to see how it comes out. Big thanks to Sea & Reef for helping us to play this reverse April Fool’s trick on you guys and we wish them the best in producing more longfin clownfish to add to the diversity of captive bred and designer clownfish.
