Hopkin’s Jawfish is a very rarely seen cold waters species hailing from the deeper waters of the Northwest Pacific Ocean. This basically means that you won’t see this fish outside of Japan, and today we feature a specimen on display at Enoshima Aquarium.
Opistognathus hopkinsi is one of the most colorful species of jawfish with a body that is bright yellow and blue, especially when they are small. Alas, we know very little about this species as there exists very few pictures of Hopkin’s jawfish, especially of the entire body as it is most often encountered poking just its head out of a burrow.
The business end of Hopkins’ jawfish is all we see in this video as well but it does show a muted blue and yellow banded coloration, probably due to a combination of being an adult specimen and being in flat daylight colored illumination. Opistognathus hopkinsi is right up there with Opistognathus decorus, the Tattoo jawfish, in terms of exquisiteness.
While these jawfish may be rare and exotic, the ‘common’ blue spot jawfish from Mexico is probably a much more affordable and suitable aquarium fish. However, that doesn’t stop us from pining after some of these super rare species from across the Pacific Ocean.
