Genicanthus spinus is a species of angelfish so rare that it’s literally one of the few Pomacanthids that we’d never written about, until today. We’ve covered so many rare species of angels like the blackspot pygmy angel, the Abei angelfish, the black…
Search Results For: cook islands
A first look at the REAL Cirrhilabrus claire from its type location of the Cook Islands
As I type this, my breath is rapid, and my fingers are bent from random spasmodic twitching. We’ve seen Cirrhilabrus claire before, and a few times now. We’ve even covered it extensively before, but nothing could have prepared us for this.…
Purple face Helfrich’s firefish resurface from the Cook Islands
Helfrich’s firefish, Nemateleotris helfrichi, were once so rare in the aquairum hobby that you basically never saw them at the fish store. How times have changed now that the dainty little Helfrich’s is collected in massive numbers from the Marshall Islands…
Scott’s fairy wrasse from Cook Islands is the quintessential Cirrhilabrus scottorum
Once upon a time, Scott’s fairy wrasses from the Cook Islands was THE wrasse to have; it was the bee’s knees of fairy wrasses and it was pretty much the only form of Cirrhilarbus scottorum that you could get in the…
Centropyge narcosis imported from Cook Islands by Quality Marine
Centropyge narcosis has just made its world debut in the Americas thanks to the recent import by aquarium fish powerhouse Quality Marine. The Narcosis angelfish is an extremely rare deepwater reef fish previously believed to be endemic to the Cook Islands. Quality…
Friday Smorgasbord: Ocean Health Index, why fish school, crochet reefs, artificial islands, underwater hamsters, iMac aquariums and a lionfish derby
Another Friday and another interesting smorgasbord of news and tidbits. First off is news about a new Ocean Health Index developed by marine scientists from a range of conservation, academic, and government institutions this scoring system was built to assess…
Pseudanthias cf ventralis from the Marshall Islands may very well be a separate species
The variations of Pseudanthias ventralis may very well one day be described as separate species from the original Cook Islands type. The most commonly seen of these variants are the ones hailing from the Marshall Islands. Males from this area typically…
Indonesian Acropora tenuis has been renamed Acropora bifaria
A team of 11 coral researchers has used phylogenomic techniques to resolve the taxonomy of the genus Acropora. Historically, coral taxonomy was based almost exclusively on skeletal morphology, resulting in the description of some 400 species of Acropora, with two-thirds…
Meet Nemateleotris lavandula, the Lavender-blushed Dartfish
The 19th century was a golden age for ichthyological exploration. It signified an era of what seemed like an endless slew of new discoveries, where even the most iconic and noble of species we know today were without names. Taxonomists…
Top 10 Angelfish Stories of 2019
It’s no secret that marine angelfish are some of the highest profile pets for our saltwater and reef aquariums, and they are certainly among our favorite reef animals to write about. With a circumtropical distribution, their captive breeding breakthroughs, aberrations,…
