We recently visited a very unique aquarium at the Mokupapapa Discovery Center in Hawaii. The mere size of this aquarium is not what makes it impressive but the beautiful and extraordinarily rare fish that it contain. While there are many…
Friday Smorgasbord: Dinofish, lava, orbs and baby seals
Welcome to another iteration of our Friday Smorgasbord or maybe its more of a Friday Tapas — small servings of some intriguing articles, videos and items that caught our attention this week. We have a good one today featuring prehistoric-looking…
New Wrasse and Anthias Collected in Papahanaumokuakea, Hawaii
We already know that there’s loads of new fish in the mesophotic zone of the ocean so it’s always exciting when new fish are discovered down there. It’s especially tantalizing when new fish are discovered in a national marine park,…
The Coolest Hawaiian reef fish get visually checklisted in this Kure dive video
Hawaii is renowned for its endemism which extends from the land down to the deep reefs. It’s been a while since we’ve posted a really good dive video featuring some rare fish so you can be certain that this one…
Awesome Fish Spotlight: Roa excelsa
Roa excelsa is a unique deepwater butterflyfish that is part of a very interesting genus of reef fish. The Excelsa butterflyfish has three sibling species including Roa modesta, Roa jayakari and the fairly new Roa australis. We’ve featured the modest butterflyfish,…
Hawaii’s reefs gets photographed for Google Street View
First the Great Barrier Reef, then Florida and now Hawaii is getting the Google Street View love. According to a recent Associated Press report, Hawaii’s reefs are getting mapped as part of a larger project by the XL Catlin Seaview…
Newly described black coral is one of the oldest living animals in the world
Leiopathes annosa is a new species of deep sea black coral that was recently discovered living on the seafloor around the waters of Hawaii and the Papahanaumokuakea marine national monument. In addition to being a new and previously unknown species, the…
Centropyge abei and Chaetodon smithi: Black and yellow superstars of Waikiki
If you ever visit Hawaii and don’t stop by the Waikiki aquarium, consider yourself a felon and a convicted criminal for breaking the fish geek code. In a small public aquarium within the Waikiki neighbourhood of Honolulu lives two mega superstars of…
Hawaii anti-aquarium legislation being reconsidered TODAY
An amended HB 873HD1 regulating the aquarium fishery will be heard by Committee on Judiciary on Friday at 3:00 p.m. in the State Capitol’s Conference Room 325. Testimony must be received by the Committee no later than 3:00 p.m. Thursday,…
The hobby needs your help to prevent a trio of sour laws in Hawaii
It’s never a pleasant affair to hear of yet another new law being proposed to shutter the aquarium hobby but today we really need action from all of you. A trio of laws being proposed in Hawaii will go into…
