We’ve been excited to see new fish and corals coming out of Papua New Guinea for nearly three years and at long last the day has finally come, at least in terms of the fish. Being in the heart of the infamous Coral Triangle Papua New Guinea is home to an amazing variety and diversity of clownfish and it was the collection location of the first specimens of wild lightning maroon clownfish.
We would have been thrilled to see a crop of just a few wild true perculas and perhaps some oddball maroons but partner company RVS Fishworld is showing off the whole enchilada with representatives of nearly every representative of this popular fish family found in the region. Normal and melanistic color morph of Amphiprion clarkii, check. Normal and melanistic varieties of saddle back clownfish, check.
Common ocellaris, pure true percula, and even onyx varieties in all their glorious, unadulterated flawless natural appearance are tantalizingly close and will be imminently available in the aquarium hobby once again. The only species not represented in this haul of wild collected clownfish from PNG are the pink and orange skunk clowns, as well as the blue stripe clownfish which we’re confident will show up in future collections.
We know that most aquarists get their excitement from new strains of domesticated clownfish and while we love our storms, blizzards and picassos as much as the next clownfish fancier, there’s something about wild clownfish that really does it for us. We sincerely hope that the PNG Amphiprion collection that is being shown off by RVS Fishworld is just the tip of the iceberg because we have a lot of anemones that would really appreciate some anemonefish swimming amongst their tentacles.
