Before this past weekend we would have been first in line to dog on the usually pale yellow belly regal blue tang,paracanthurus hepatus,from the Indian Ocean. While visitingMarine Designsnear Atlanta Georgia, among some of the awesome aquariums and livestock we spotted a very large regal blue tang from across the fish room. Based on it’s demeanor and show quality size this regal blue tang was obviously a used fish that was traded in to the fish store. Were it not for the bright yellow belly and brighter yellow tail, we wouldn’t have bothered to give it a second look but the black body marking looked really odd and warranted closer inspection.
We totally expected to see such a large veteran aquarium surgeonfish showing signs of HLLE eating away at the black body marking and face, causing the unusual the aberrant look but this fish isimpeccable.
When they are young yellow belly blue tangs from the Indian Ocean basically look like a washed out version of the solid blue Indo-Pacific regal blue tangs that we more commonly see. Occasionally you’ll see a specimen ofP. hepatus带有蓝色上身和黄色下半身的离散颜色图案,但通常情况并非如此。有了这个怪异的蓝色唐,黄色和蓝色的颜色分布截然不同 - 蓝色变成了更轻但同样鲜艳的色彩大约the black marking, the face, and the pectoral, dorsal and anal fins are especially bright. The black marking itself shows an unusual pattern of fine blue spots replacing the black color in places.
90% of readers will invariably prefer the standard-issue solid blue regal blue tang but from now on we’ll be giving the little yellow belly blue tangs a little bit more credit.