One of a kind

[danorth]

Lucky bastage, I'm fighting just to get a USED chiller and not get the 3rd degree.


BTW, I'm curious to see how big that formosa gets as well. Your h2o quality is 10x what mine is and my coris is still 12" nearly 2 years later. If there is a tank that the formosa can do it in, it's your's!

 

[Titan*69]

Ahhh, thanks man

Just an update on it's diet: It's eating ocean nutrition Formula 2; the stuff with added garlic. And Tetra MicroCrabs cyclop-eeze granules :thumbsup:

 

[Titan*69]

As requested; the orange on the head is much brighter in person. Lisa, you had some concerns with the immense weight of larger tanks. I've got some pics that might help...

 

[copps]

Hey guys, the two melanosoma complex angelfish above are an undescribed fish from the Phillipines that may be a new species. These should be looked at and described next year. Whether they're a new species or just a color variant is TBD.

True C. vanderloosi come from a small area (about 100 sq. miles) in the Milne Bay province at the very eastern part of Papua New Guinea, far from where these fish are from despite the similarities in appearance. C. vanderloosi are only found in cool water locations there where the water is between 71 and 75 degrees, compared with surrounding warm water areas above 78 through the other parts of Milne Bay. They also never show an all yellow tail as the specimens here do. This new fish shows the tail of C. dimidiatus and body of C. vanderloosi. The photo of the fish at this link shows a C. vanderloosi from Milne Bay.

 

[LargeAngels]

John, I thought in Scott's book it either showed or talked about tail colors very similar to mine for vanderloosi?

I'm 99% sure mine came from the Phillipines as it was transhipped and in that shipment was a bluespotted angelfish, which are only supposed to be found around Cebu.

 

[copps]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10936891#post10936891 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by LargeAngels
John, I thought in Scott's book it either showed or talked about tail colors very similar to mine for vanderloosi?

I'm 99% sure mine came from the Phillipines as it was transhipped and in that shipment was a bluespotted angelfish, which are only supposed to be found around Cebu.

That's interesting... I completely overlooked in this thread that you mentioned it probably came from the Phillipines. This fish has confused me for a while because of the caudal fin, and the fact that I knew these were not coming in from Papua New Guinea or anywhere near it. What Scott mentions in his book is correct... from small juvenile to subadult true C. vanderloosi will show a yellow tail, but with a prominent submarginal black bar that goes all the way through the tail fin... it's not faint like the one in your specimen and it's not even close to all yellow like your specimen. I read the paper that described C. vanderloosi in Aqua in 2003 and it has many images that clear the confusion of the melanosoma complex, but your Phillipines fish is not shown or mentioned, and of course none of the current literature lists this new Phillipines fish... so... what cleared it up? One kick butt dinner!

Last Tuesday I had dinner with Dr. Gerry Allen and his wife while they were in the DC area for two days. Gerry is one of those living legend ichthyologists and wrote the paper and described C. vanderloosi (and wrote a few books on angelfish... and described the recent Centropyge abei!) What a night... we hung out afterwards in their hotel room and went through many things. I showed him the images I had gathered of this new fish (including your image)... again I overlooked in the thread that you said it came from the Phillipines... sure enough he immediately said that this is a fish he's been chasing for a while in the Phillipines! It's range is nowhere near C. vanderloosi, but you could see it's very similar. He's going out there next year to try and collect some to describe it... what a great guy he is and his wife Connie too... they're both American but have been in Australia for over 30 years, so it was great opportunity to meet up with him one on one after talking at MACNA this year...

Anyway, a bit long winded, but I figured you'd like to know... whatever it is that's an exciting fish! It will be interesting to see what it turns out to be... until then it's Chaetodontoplus cf. melanosoma...

Copps

 

[LargeAngels]

John,

Thanks for the explanations. I didn't even really pay attention to the documented collection site. I've also had the opportunity to chat with Dr. Gerry Allen, but that was a while back and about clownfish. Very interesting about the fish. I will contact the importer about this and see if I can get more info or fish. He used to work at an LFS, but now lives in California importing fish. I think it is his family back in Asia that export the fish to him.

I've also had quite a bit of curiosity about this whole complex. Especially the fact that there is virtually no info on bluespotted angelfish. I've got one specimen (my aviatar) that I got at about 3 1/2 to 4" but now is 6.5", which according to all the books is 1.0" longer than they get. I just don't think they have caught any bigger than 5.5". Also if you examine pictures of some you can see that the dots are not random but form horizontal lines.

 

[thor32766]

wow that is a sweet fish!!! congrats on him.

 

[LargeAngels]

John,

By the way, did Dr. Gerald Allen find another clown species?

 

[copps]

Yes... not sure if it's a new species or not... most of what we talked about was angelfish, but we spoke a bit about the new clownfish... I'll get more details, but I remember in the photos the center band made it look like a latezonatus, despite being found in East Africa (I forget exactly where... Madagascar maybe?)... but Dr. Allen said it was closest to A. latifasciatus, which he described from that area back in the 70s...

Whatever it is, it's a wicked looking clownfish... It's amazing that new species are still being found on shallow water reefs...

 

[copps]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10942409#post10942409 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by LargeAngels
John,

By the way, did Dr. Gerald Allen find another clown species?

I heard back from Gerry and two years ago he was assigned to reexamine the type specimens of A. latifasciatus that he described in the 70s... He found what he thought was a new species in Northern Madagascar, but it was just A. latifasciatus with slightly wider bars... When I saw the photos it looked like a latezonatus pattern on a typical clarkii complex body... very interesting, although I didn't look at them in detail...

Have A. latifasciatus ever showed up in the US?

Sorry for the highjack by the way...

Copps