It has been a while since our last installation of epithet etymology, and, to make up for the absence in posts, we’ll feature a truly stunning fish from the butterflyfish genus Chaetodon. In keeping with the theme of these articles, we’ll take a look at the meaning behind the name of [...]
In recent years, we’ve been seeing a surprising number of fishes from the Central Pacific washing ashore at Cagayan in the Northern Philippines—Lemonpeel Angelfish, Helfrichi Firefish, Yellow Tang, Shepardi Angelfish, and on and on and on. And when you take into account all of the Japanese [...]
Hybrid Chaetodon tinkeri x Chaetodon miliaris In October 2011, Robert Whitton and Richard Pyle found a small juvenile hybrid butterflyfish while conducting a rebreather dive in deep water in the Hawaiian Islands. It was the first hybrid Chaetodn tinkeri x C. miliaris reported since the early [...]
There are somewhere around 88 recognized species of Chaetodon butterflyfish swimming around the coral reefs of the world, which makes it quite challenging when it comes to keeping track of all this biodiversity. Systems for classifying this mess have varied considerably over the years, with upwards [...]
Today’s instalment of epithet etymology features two species of reef fish displaying extreme dichotomy in nearly all aspects of their biology – the first, known only as a rare, reclusive denizen of deep reef slopes, while the other, a common and highly ubiquitous fish in [...]
In recent years, there has been a flurry of published research into the causes of speciation in coral reef fishes. For many Indo-Pacific groups, geography seems to be the main driver of diversity, but it isn’t always well-known how this regional diversity was formed and when this diversification [...]
This time of year, each dive in New York becomes a little less pleasant. Every time I go out, I tell myself: “This will probably be my last dive of the year.” Each throbbing headache from the cold water is a little more intense, and the period of post-dive shivering lasts a little longer. But [...]
How close are we? “This Close”! It occurred to me that sometimes we use the phrase “this close” in idle conversation, often holding up our fingers perhaps a centimeter apart, as if to give an actual indication of dimension when what we’re really trying to convey is is [...]