金冠蝴蝶鱼,必威官网登录随行版chaetodon flavocoronatus, is one of the rarest species of butterflyfish that we’ve been自2009年以来写作, but had never seen for ourselves until last week. Closely related to the tinker’s butterflyfish from Hawaii, the declivis butterflyfish from the Central Pacific, and the burgess butterflyfish with a much broader range,C. flavocoronatus主要来自关岛和玛丽安娜群岛。
But the natural range and boundaries between these species appears to be quite soft with many examples of different hybrids appearing over the years including the“肮脏的伯吉斯”, 各种各样的tinker’s hybridsand it’s hard to know where the species ranges are really delineated. Sometimes the specimens we come across exhibit more features one species than the other and that’s what we believe is going on with this ‘clean’ specimen gold crown butterflyfish we acquired from Sea Dwelling Creatures for the Reef Builders Studio last week.
Famed twilight zone explorer and ichthyologist Dr. Luiz Rocha shared some of his original images ofpure关岛的金色皇冠蝴蝶鱼,必威官网登录随行版您可以看到皇冠是如何更亮的黄色,冠上几乎没有深色的斑块,但它并没有像我们现在正在照顾的鱼那样向下延伸到胸部。此外,支持遗传混合的触感是骨盆的轻藏红色颜色和肛门鳍的颜色C. burgessibut which is pure white in ideal specimens ofC. flavocoronatus.
With no collections or exports from Guam this specimen of the gold crown butterflyfish is as close as we’re ever likely to get to seeingC. flavocoronatusfor ourselves let alone enjoying one in our personal aquariums. This small butterflyfish is still exhibiting some vestiges of juvenile coloration and shape and we look forward to growing it into a six inch show specimen like ourtrue Hawaiian Tinker’s butterflyfishin our current saltwater fish display, and hopefully we can get them both to live harmoniously in the future.