The Cirrhilabrus fairy wrasses represent one of the most diverse and beloved groups of reef-associated fish, popular with both aquarists and divers alike for their beautiful colors and spectacular mating displays. There are currently more than fifty species recognized...
Coral reefs are full of intimate interspecies relationships—from the well-known dalliance of clownfishes with anemones, to the more obscure romance of Epizoanthus and eunicids, or the awkward ambling of Heteropsammia and its sipunculan courtesan—the ocean, it would...
By Joe Rowlett  The Angelfishes of the Pomacanthidae are undoubtedly some of the most universally popular species in the marine aquarium world. At the same time, their large size and showy patterns have made them some of the most well-documented and photographed of...
The many colorful wrasses of the genus Halichoeres represent some of the most popular fishes for the reef aquarium, including such familiar names as the Christmas Wrasse, Melanurus Wrasse, Canary Wrasse and rarer beauties like the Earmuff Wrasse. With roughly 80...
Green Star Polyps are about as common an aquarium coral as there is, but, if you stare at enough of them, you might notice something unexpected—there are quite a few different varieties of this coral available to aquarists. For instance, some specimens have long...
As aquarists, we tend to think of mysid shrimps as little more than food for our fishes, ignoring that these are some of the most diverse and ecologically important creatures in tropical marine ecosystems. Roughly 1,000 species are known, but within our fish tanks we...
Bandfishes are a rarely seen offering in the aquarium trade, ideal for those desiring something a bit more unusual to add to their aquatic menagerie. They originate from silty habitats, where their eel-like bodies are used to create vertical burrows, which they hover...
I'd like to draw your attention today to a remarkable worm, Ikeda taenioides, whose immense size and bizarre morphology make it unlike anything you are likely to have seen before—a veritable living tape measure of a creature, stuck on its own lonely, idiosyncratic...
The Immaculate Clade: smithvanizi, parvirostris, unimarginatus, bimarginatus & cf bimarginatus “Africa” This clade can be recognized by the thick lavender margins of the caudal fin and the usual presence of a thin red stripe along the base of the dorsal fin. Four...
The Red-banded Clade: lori, flavoguttatus, privitera, aurulentus & cf aurulentus “Coral Sea” The last clades to discuss are best recognized by lacking the stripe running posteroventrally from the eye, a character otherwise seen in most (all?) other Pseudanthias....