We’ve covered some truly bizarre and unique marine fish of all kinds over the years, but to this day we can’t say we’ve ever even heard of anything quite like this. Marine fish with deformed bodies, especially tailless specimens have been observed in a wide range of species but the ‘Keyhole’ sailfin tang is a very special surgeonfish that is young, colorful, and has a perfect hole right through its body!
On a plain background the keyhole sailfin tang looks like most others, but when it swims out in the open or against colorful corals, the flashes of color you can see through the striped body is absolutely jarring. The keyhole through the body of the tang doesn’t look recent, the cause of this weird anomaly may never be known – it could be a developmental defect but most likely it’s the result of a possible predation injury that seems to have completely healed.
The keyhole sailfin tang – affectionately called Rabbi by its current owner Dave Botwin, aka o2manyfish – is living in what can only be described as a marine fish paradise. Mr. Botwin has his precious keyhole with some amazing fish including a tailless regal blue tang and a spectacular, large hybrid powder blue tang. Dave featured his new fishies in a video of his outdoor coral tanks yesterday, and when he gets to showing off his keyhole tang you can really appreciate how strange it is to the reef and differently colored corals through the sailfin’s tang keyhole.
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