This is my final post of this short series.  If you missed the previous ones, the basic idea runs like this: yellow fish, en masse, look great against the blue.  This time I’m looking at Bannerfish.

I’ve photographed Heniochus intermedius in the Red Sea so often, yet I still never tire of them. Not only are they quite easy to approach, they really ‘pop’ in any image, especially if you can get underneath them a little to capture some of the water column above.

They really are a great fish for portrait work and for showing a shoal, like in the image below, where they’ve been joined by a few Masked Butterflyfish, another quintessential Red Sea fish.

Somewhat ironically I have very few images of H. diphreutus, and none that are worth sharing.  This species is called the Schooling Bannerfish.  It has two much more well-defined black stripes and a longer filament on the dorsal.  Personally I prefer intermedius, which has a little more yellow.

H. intermedius grows to about twenty centimeters long and is generally an open water feeder.  I’ve seen them chomp down on jellyfish as well as taking smaller items from the zooplankton.

This one looks great as it explores the hull of a wreck.