The Chainlink Maroon Clownfish is a new aberrant individual of Premnas biaculeatus that was just collected in Papua New Guinea by Golden Ocean. While the discovery of the Chainlink Maroon Clownfish is an awesome surprise, it’s less of a shocker to learn that it was collected at Fisherman’s Island where the first two lightning maroon clownfish were found.
The first lightning maroon clownfish was revealed in September of 2008 showing a large female with very reduced stripes but the ‘Eve’ of all lightning maroon clownfish in captivity was collected 12 years ago in early 2010. There has been some interesting morse code and other aberrant Premnas found in this part of the world but to date these are the only two ‘full’ lightning maroons discovered in PNG with the new Chainlink Maroon definitely being the most sensational specimen in more than a decade.
The newly collected chainlink maroon clownfish quite closely resembles the Gold X Lightning Maroon Clownfish and Peacekeeper maroon clownfish strains we’ve seen in the past. Compared to the original lightning maroon clownfish the unique chainlink maroon clownfish actually will have a lot of genetically interesting individuals with which to spawn so we sincerely hope that the chainlink helps to kickstart a new lineage of Premnas clownfishes – we hope it goes to a breeding program and we expect some better and more close up photographs of this exciting fish very soon.
