If you’re a fan of rarely seen, beautifully patterned deepwater angelfishes, you’ll want to check out the newest video shared by the Association For Marine Exploration. Filmed during an expedition to Rarotonga in the Cook Islands, this remarkable footage features two...
The fish seen here was observed in the Philippines near the popular dive resort of Cebu, and it's surely one of the nicest looking swallowtail angelfish hybrids that’s ever been seen. Most of the time, when two species of Genicanthus get down and dirty together, the...
Of the dozens of Canthigaster species that occur throughout the tropics, few are quite so confounding as the Natal Toby. Though described nearly a century and a half ago, there are still differing opinions regarding whether it’s even a distinct species or, instead,...
Aquarists don’t usually spend much time pondering the finer details of stony coral morphology, but within their calcareous walls is a wealth of information waiting to be explored. The microscopic structure in a scleractinian’s skeleton contains important clues to the...
A mysterious new species belonging to the little-known genus Navigobius has just surfaced from Vietnam. Navigobius might not be quite so familiar a name among aquarists as some of its relatives (e.g. Nemateleotris, Ptereleotris), but this small group has some of the...
Palys and Zoas are two of the most abundant and popular types of soft coral in the aquarium trade, but they come with a small drawback… they’re potentially deadly. To varying degrees, these corals contain one of nature’s most potent poisons—palytoxin—which is capable...
Over the past decade, researchers investigating the genetics of coral evolution came to a startling conclusion—the traditional classification used for stony corals, based on skeletal morphology, was horribly (almost comedically) inaccurate. Since then, every year has...
In the last few years, Western Australia has been exporting a curious little coral whose true identity has been something of a mystery. In outward appearance, its overall shape is nearly identical to the true “scoly” (Homophyllia australis), with both typically having...
There’s been a monumental effort in recent years to revise and reclassify the taxonomy of brain corals, and, in a recently published paper, this ongoing work has resulted in the description of a new species of Micromussa from the Western Indian Ocean. This new coral,...
As Barack Obama’s presidency comes to a close, one of his most lasting legacies will no doubt be his commitment to environmental conservation. Earlier this year, his home state of Hawaii saw the creation of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, a vast marine...