Black Phase Longnose Butterfly

[Georgephoenix]

Has anyone ever kept one of these? As they are rare I know they're not something which is seen commonly, but have they ever been offered for sale before?

 

[the808state]

I have seen them from time to time. They are not common, and are not black, but more of a smudgy black. The jet black ones are very very rare. They are really cool though, usually have a nice blue outline on the entire body.

 

[YKTea]

Melanistic Forcipigers will not hold colour in captivity.

Both F. flavissimus and F. longirostris exhibit this melanistic colour form, and can vary from muddy yellow to jet black. however they revert back to yellow extremely quickly, from weeks to a month.

Dr. Chung of HK recently obtained a charcoal black longirostris, but never managed to hold the coloration. in his recent video update, it has turned into a run of the mill yellow F. longirostris.

There is a third recently described Forcipiger species, F. wanai. This one has a more brownish coloration overall but it is unknown if it exhibits a melanistic phase like the other two.

white forms also exists as well, like Zebrasoma flavescens. however colour holding for white longnosed butterflies are almost non documented in aquaria.

here is the black longirostris from dr chung posted awhile back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji71UxobKKM

and in this video you can see that it has completely reverted back to its yellow form

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_TG-DkE0yo

 

[Georgephoenix]

Thanks for the information and videos . How interesting that they return to a yellow colouration in captivity. Does anyone know why they return to that colour? Maybe it has something to do with diet or age?