Opistognathus ensiferus is the newest species of jawfish to be described. This lovely small jawfish was discovered in India and sadly, it is illustrated with a very lovely drawing of this fish.
Surprisingly, the newly minted Opistognahtus ensiferus was described based on just a single specimen collected in the Gulf of Manmar, India. There’s not much to describe about the small new jawfish species, it’s most similar to Opistognathus solorensis from Indonesia.
What is most exciting about this paper is the redescription of Opistognathus solorensis, with mention of a colorful yellow form of the species. Ranging throughout much of central Indonesia, we often see the species incidentally collected for the aquarium trade.
However the yellow morph, pictured in the header image and photographed by Ned Deloach is quite attractive. Apparently the yellow colored O. solorensis is not region specific and it has been documented in Sulawesi as well as Palau. Hopefully our man in the field Tom Bowling will be able to get some broodstock and start breeding these for the aquarium hobby.
The jawfish species are described and re-decribed by William Smith-Vaniz in a recent paper in the ZooTaxa peer-reviewed journal.
