New Species

Arothron multilineatus, a new pufferfish species described from Japan

Arothron multilineatus is a new species of large pufferfish that has just been described from Japanese caught specimens. The new pufferfish species is most closely related to the starry puffer, Arothron stellatus, but it is easily distinguished by a network of thin…

New species of green star polyps, Briareum cylindricum

Star polyps, green star polyps, brown star polyps, whatever you call them, are one group of corals that we don’t appreciate nearly enough. Nine out of ten reefers couldn’t tell you the scientific name of this important aquarium coral, or…

Australophyllia is the new home of ‘Symphyllia’ wilsoni

Australophyllia wilsoni is the new name for what we currently call Symphyllia wilsoni. We’ve always known that there was something special about Australophyllia wilsoni, from it smorphology, polyp appearance on from where in the world it comes from. Compared to…

Chrysiptera papuensis, C. ellenae & C. maurineae – three new damselfish from East Indies

We’ve already posted our Top 15 New Reef Fish Species of 2015 but we should have held out for one more week. Prolific fish namers Gerald Allen and Marc Erdmann have gone an published one more paper this year, this…

Lutjanus xanthopinnis, a new snapper species described from the Indo-Pacific

Lutjanus xanthopinnis is a new species of snapper that has just been described and joins a large complex of snappers with a pattern of yellow lines. Generally speaking, the yellow finned snapper looks more like something you might eat than keep…

Navigobius vittatus from Brunei is the newest species of Dartfish

Navigobius vittatus is a new species of deepwater dartfish that has just been described from specimens collected around Borneo. Navigobius dewa kicked off this exciting genus of dartfish several years ago and since then, several more undescribed species of these…

The cutest new species of slippery goby, Lubricogobius nanus

It’s been a hot minute since we saw some new species of reef fish being described and so this next new species from Papua New Guinea is here to make sure we don’t go without. Lubricogobius nanus is a small species…

Two new species of azoox zoanthids, Palythoa mizigama & P. umbrosa

Two new species of zoanthids, Palythoa mizigama & Palythoa umbrosa were described earlier this year but we’re just now getting a good look at the appearance of these novel zoanthids. What makes the two new Palythoa species really interesting is not…

There’s probably more than one species of blue ridge coral, Heliopora

Blue ridge coral, Heliopora coerulea, is a unique species of coral in the wild and in the aquarium.Despite being extremely widespread and common on wild reefs, for some reason blue ridge coral is pretty rare in aquariums, even though it is a…

Plectranthias bennetti, a new species of anthiine from the Coral Sea

The anthiine genus Plectranthias contains over fifty species of small to medium sized benthic, reef dwelling species. With the exception of P. garrupellus in the Western Atlantic, the genus is restricted to the Indo-Pacific region. Most species are small, highly secretive, and…