I took this in Maui last week - does anyone know what the dark colored fish is?
Or heck, what are the silver ones?
I took this in Maui last week - does anyone know what the dark colored fish is?
Or heck, what are the silver ones?
If by “dark colored fish”, you mean the fish that is almost entirely orange and white with a dark vertical band across its eyes.
It’s a butterfly fish. They are pain to try to ID because there are about a gazillion species, they almost all have that band across the eyes and the colouration within species varies with locale and age of the fish. Even the experts don’t come close to agreeing on how many species there are because every tiny reef can have its own distinct forms.
If I had to hazard a guess, I would say it was a young dusky.
I’ll see your dusky and raise you a racoon butterfly fish, Chaetodon lunula.
Beats me. I admitted I was just guessing.
I have no real idea either. I just started browsing through butterfly fish varieties and came upon that one with the very prominent black band all the way across the top of the head and saw that the range included Hawaii. In most of the pictures of duskies the black seems to fade or thin as it reaches the top of the head.
Clown Triggerfish: Saltwater Aquarium Fish for Marine Aquariums The colored one is a trigger fish. there are lots of varieties and colors.
Absolutely not. The body shape and fins are completely wrong. Most obvious is the tail, which in the triggerfish extends well past the dorsal/anal fins.
I think its the juvie Dusky - the Racoons appear to be yellow, and this fish was orange, or burnt umber, or some such darker than yellow color. I have another, really poor, picture of the fish, which basically only shows the color, if that would help?
http://www.saltwaterfish.com/Saltwater-Fish_c_15.html Here is a selection of salt water fish. The wrasses have the shape of one of the silver fish. i see a round mouth in the picture which makes it a trigger.
The original picture of the silver fish isn’t good enough - here is a better one. They were rather small - bodies without tails maybe 1" to 2".
Sure. More data can’t hurt. I’ll take one more go at defending my suggestion…
From what I’ve read, duskies are only found in the South Pacific / Australia, while racoons are found in Hawaii.
http://www.eol.org/pages/212624
http://www.eol.org/pages/204383
http://www.marinelifephotography.com/fishes/butterflyfishes/butterflyfishes.htm
There are many degrees of coloration in all of the butterflies, but I think the angle of the shot, which is mostly from the top down, would emphasize the darker dorsal area and not give a good view of the yellow ventral area of a racoon.
I also think the dark circular spot with the clear gold margin falls more in line with the racoons that I have seen that have such a spot vs the duskies I’ve seen that have a spot in the same general area.
YMMV.
Here is the other, crappy, picture. Tho one thing I noticed in this one that was bothering me is that it looks like his “nose” is darker, like a Raccoon, rather than the white it appears to be in the first picture.
Oh! Well, that’s a problem eh? Unless I can now be world famous for having discovered and poorly photographed a Dusky way out of it’s habitat? No?
The last two look more like I remember him, especially now that I’ve let go of the idea that his nose is white.
OK, you’ve got me convinced, I’ll go change the ID on the photo. I really want to learn to scuba now!
A round mouth on the colored fish? That’s not his mouth. That’s the spot at the top of his tail to fool/confuse predators. Apparently works on Dopers as well.