A single specimen of a rare deepwater hogfish has arrived in America for the first time. Named the Black Ear Candy Hogfish, Bodianus tanyokidus comes from the Indo-West Pacific, Comoro Islands, and Mauritius to southern Japan, and can be found off the Ryukyu islands, Japan, at 328’-656’/100-200m depth.
The featured fish was collected in Taiwan and imported by high-end fish retailer Unique Fins. The only other one that we know of was procured for public display by the Okinawa Churaumi public aquarium in Japan, the news of which we covered in August 2020. Bodianus tanyokidus can be found at depths ranging from 131’-656’/40-200m, with Unique Fins’ fish being collected just shy of 328’/100m depth. Those depths can be as cool as 68F/20C, although Unique has brought theirs up to 73F/22.8C and it’s said to be doing well, on a diet of frozen krill.
The Black Ear Candy Hogfish was first described in 1981 by Gomon and Madden, with Martin F. Gomon revising the Bodianus genus in 2006, adding eight new species and stating then that there were at least 43 species. The specific name tanyokidus comes from the Greek ‘tany’ for long, and ‘okidos’ for ear-ring, which refers to the dorsoventrally elongated black opercular spot, or black ‘ear.’ A medium-sized hogfish, B.tanyokidus can attain a length of 17.7cm.
As only one of a possible two in captivity that we know of, this fish is an incredibly rare import that could only be surpassed by the addition of another one so that a pair could form, just as other hogfish do when breeding. Unique Fins has not advertised a price for the fish, or released details of how large a sum they would be willing to part with it for.
