It’s been a little bit since we’ve dug up a butterflyfish hybrid, so how about a Chaetodon cross that we haven’t seen before? While some hybrid Chaetodon butterflyfish can be hard to place, this little fishy is an obvious cross between Chaetodon meyeri and C. reticulatus, two closely related, coral-eating butterflyfish.
Both parent species of Chaetodon are known to occur in the Marshall Islands, and this particular fish was sighted at Kwajalein Atoll, by In-Depth Images of Underwater Kwaj, a great website for pictures of various reef life from this iconic atoll and lagoon. We can’t help but daydream whether this butterflyfish cross exhibits any ‘Hybrid Vigor’ which could make it a better aquarium resident, but we’re glad that the photos were made and this special fish gets to snack on the fields of SPS corals that are Kwajalein Atoll. [Underwater Kwaj]
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