Saltwater Fish

Will the real Terelabrus rubrovittatus please swim up

Terelabrus is at the moment a monotypic genus first erected in 1998 based on an unknown labrid caught at 100m in Bulari Pass, New Caledonia. Since then, the genus has not expanded despite the appearance of two potentially new species, one…

Awesome Fish Spotlight: The Armitagei hybrid love child

Apolemichthys is one of seven angelfish genera that are ever popular in the aquarium trade. The genus encompasses some of the age old aquarium favourites such as the flag fin angelfish (A. trimaculatus), bandit angelfish (A. arcuatus) as well as…

South African Harlequin Goldies, Pseudanthias connelli available for the first time

The Harlequin Goldie, Pseudanthias connelli is an iconic member of the underwater marine aquarium community in its native range of South Africa. A member of the widely distributed Pseudanthias genus, the males of this species sport a dramatically different color and pattern which…

Black tailed Centropyge heraldi is just another one of numerous confusing variations

Centropyge heraldi is an unassuming yellow dwarf angelfish with a huge can of worms just waiting to be opened. When you do, you’ll probably want to break down and cry in confusion. Apart from the standard yellow dwarf angelfish, C.…

Survival on the reef part 2: Cover and concealment

In our previous installation of reef creatures and their survival techniques, we talked about mimicry and how certain mimics have evolved to copy their models for protection. In this second part, we take a look at animals who display protective…

The Saddled Toby: Puffer Personality in a Small Package

Sometimes good things come in small packages. Such is the case with Canthigaster valentini, better known as the saddled toby, black-saddled toby, or Valentin’s toby (you may also see “sharpnose puffer” substituted for “toby” in various sources). Reaching only about…

Navigobius cf. dewa collected from the Maldives for the first time

Not too long ago we pointed out that the genus Navigobius could hold two more species apart from the original japanese endemic N dewa. In this article we mentioned that certain individuals of “pink dart gobies” coming out of Japan were…

Sugoi Sakana Supottoraito: Chaetodon nippon

No, your screen isn’t displaying random alphabets in a series of unpronounceable words. Our atrocious attempt at translating today’s title post into Japanese was intentional. We’re going international on today’s Awesome Fish Spotlight (literally), and we’re featuring a butterflyfish that could…

Decompressing marine fish from the deep reefs of Curacao

The following is a guest contribution from Joe Oliver, a resident Marine Biologist for the Curacao Sea Aquarium and Substation Curacao. As an aquarist (hobbyist or professional) there is a huge array of fishes available as possible options when it comes…

Symphysanodon katayamai is a beautiful slopefish that is almost unknown in the trade

Many deepwater reef fish don’t get enough air time simply because they live so deep and are hard to find. One such fish is Symphysanodon katayamai, or the yellow striped slopefish. Symphysanodon is a genus comprising of about a dozen…