OMG! Look at these hybrids and rare fishes!

[Digiman]

i found it

here's a quick pic i took of the beautiful male right after it was unboxed. it was the most stunning blue i have ever seen and i had no idea what it was. i never even heard of P. aequalis until that day.

it was a full grown male. 12cm.

Absolutely gorgeous! Contours of sky and ocean blue and shaped like a tuna fish. Such a unique fish!

[ACCK]

Absolutely gorgeous! Contours of sky and ocean blue and shaped like a tuna fish. Such a unique fish!

So poetic!

[yikai]

tony vargas is slaying me with yet another haul of rare wrasses. this time from kevin kohen.

attenuatus and roseafascia. he has another mystery cirrhilabrus that he has not revealed yet.

[yikai]

The contents of this container is worth many tens of K!

A tiny juvenile Basabei butterfly, 2 adult basabeis, 2 excelsa butterflies, 1 fuscipinnis anthias, 1 TINY sanguineus hogfish and the mega rare Liopropoma aurora!!

[yikai]

how many narcosis and peppermints can u spot in this wild video?

surprisingly, a longnosed butterflyfish at that depth!

[yikai]

colini angels from cairns marine @ blueharbor.

how many can u see?

[Groot Vis]

The contents of this container is worth many tens of K! A tiny juvenile Basabei butterfly, 2 adult basabeis, 2 excelsa butterflies, 1 fuscipinnis anthias, 1 TINY sanguineus hogfish and the mega rare Liopropoma aurora!!

This is a incredible shipment!

[yikai]

This is a incredible shipment!

indeed. the butterfly demigods, excelsa and basabei.

basabei is so crazy. it's the only pacific ocean prognathods and separated so far away from all the others in the atlantic. as such you would imagine it to diverge the most and true enough, the patterns are totally different. the rest of the prognathodes have the similar plain body with black stripe on front and back whereas basabei is totally banded.

liopropoma aurora is the boss. too rare.

[OldTownJoe]

basabei is so crazy. it's the only pacific ocean prognathods and separated so far away from all the others in the atlantic. as such you would imagine it to diverge the most and true enough, the patterns are totally different. the rest of the prognathodes have the similar plain body with black stripe on front and back whereas basabei is totally banded.

From Pyle's description of P basabei: "The Hawaiian Prognathodes seems to differ slightly from the description of P. guezei in the color of the pelvic fin. Mauge and Bauchot (1976) described the pelvic fin color of P. guezei as white proximally and black distally. The pelvic fins of the Prognathodes from Hawai'i appear to be orangish distally. Because the original color description of P. guezei may be based on nonfresh material, we cannot be certain that this represents a real difference between the two populations. Except for pelvic-fin color, we are unable to identify any other characters of the Hawaiian Prognathodes that distinguish it from P. guezei."

And here's a photo of Prognathodes guezei taken from that same paper, none seem to exist on Google.

Also, there is P. guyotensis, which the ICUN lists as: "This species has been recorded from Palau (video observation) northwards along the Palau-Kyushu Ridge, and in the Maldive Islands in the central Indian Ocean. This species has been recorded between 125-332 m in depth (G.R. Allen pers. comm. 2006). It likely occurs in areas between the known distribution records (R. Pyle pers. comm. 2009)." There are photos of the holotype online which show it to resemble the Scythe Butterflyfishes of the Eastern Pacific, P. falcifer & P. carlhubbsi."

[OldTownJoe]

From Pyle's description of P basabei:

Also, I think it's worth pointing out that "Prognathodes basabei" is essentially a trade name for this scientifically undescribed species. It's referred to as Prognathodes cf. guezei in Pyle's paper, as they apparently failed to collect specimens with which to officially describe it. Does anyone know where this name originates from? I've never seen it mentioned in the aquarium literature.

[yikai]

Also, I think it's worth pointing out that "Prognathodes basabei" is essentially a trade name for this scientifically undescribed species. It's referred to as Prognathodes cf. guezei in Pyle's paper, as they apparently failed to collect specimens with which to officially describe it. Does anyone know where this name originates from? I've never seen it mentioned in the aquarium literature.

i totally forgot about guyotensis. thanks for reminding me. there is a book with a picture of a live guyotensis in it. and guezei is so unknown it's almost a myth. basabei has been so featured i that i forgot the rest.

i cannot find a proper description paper nor any scientific mention of P. basabei. you are right in that is it s a colloquial term but where they got the word basabei from, i have no idea.

here's a picture of guyotensis from a book. it was placed photographically with the roaps subgenus. to me, it looks neither like a roaps nor a prognathodes. looks like a griffith's angel lol.

[Groot Vis]

Wow thanks for the butterfly lessons

[yikai]

Wow thanks for the butterfly lessons

joe is very knowledgable and a conscientious reefer.

you can tell he researches alot and reads many pdf papers. i have much to learn from him here!

[Digiman]

From Pyle's description of P basabei: "The Hawaiian Prognathodes seems to differ slightly from the description of P. guezei in the color of the pelvic fin. Mauge and Bauchot (1976) described the pelvic fin color of P. guezei as white proximally and black distally. The pelvic fins of the Prognathodes from Hawai'i appear to be orangish distally. Because the original color description of P. guezei may be based on nonfresh material, we cannot be certain that this represents a real difference between the two populations. Except for pelvic-fin color, we are unable to identify any other characters of the Hawaiian Prognathodes that distinguish it from P. guezei."

And here's a photo of Prognathodes guezei taken from that same paper, none seem to exist on Google.

Also, there is P. guyotensis, which the ICUN lists as: "This species has been recorded from Palau (video observation) northwards along the Palau-Kyushu Ridge, and in the Maldive Islands in the central Indian Ocean. This species has been recorded between 125-332 m in depth (G.R. Allen pers. comm. 2006). It likely occurs in areas between the known distribution records (R. Pyle pers. comm. 2009)." There are photos of the holotype online which show it to resemble the Scythe Butterflyfishes of the Eastern Pacific, P. falcifer & P. carlhubbsi."

That photo is a prognathode "basabei" taken at kona, hawaii. They labelled it as prognathode guezei which i believe is a typo error and they meant prognathode cf. guezei.

Don't forget there is also another unidentified prognathode found in Palau deepwater which is almost identical to prognathode "basabei" of hawaii. In fact i believe they would be the same species. This butterfly was seen in this 2007 BBC video together with Abei angel and chromis abyssus at 100m depth when Rich Pyle, Brian Greene and John Earle were collecting new species.

[aray]

by the man who caught it....

[OldTownJoe]

That photo is a prognathode "basabei" taken at kona, hawaii. They labelled it as prognathode guezei which i believe is a typo error and they meant prognathode cf. guezei.

Don't forget there is also another unidentified prognathode found in Palau deepwater which is almost identical to prognathode "basabei" of hawaii. In fact i believe they would be the same species. This butterfly was seen in this 2007 BBC video together with Abei angel and chromis abyssus at 100m depth when Rich Pyle, Brian Greene and John Earle were collecting new species.

Great information; I forgot they were in this video. My suspicion is that P. guezei, and the Palauan & Hawaiian P. cf. guezei "bababei" are conspecific. There have been species available for study for 15 years now and they haven't described anything from them. So it seems that unless they are taking an unusually long time with this group, they must have determined there wasn't anything to describe. I just emailed Dr Pyle to get a more definitive answer.

[yikai]

MACNA 2013 fish from Koji wada.

an amazing collection.

Ocoulus blennies, 15cm juvenile dragon moray eel and 3 Kamohara blennies to ORA. joining this entourage are nippon butterflies and interrupta angels.

[yikai]

niger angel.

6cm!

[Digiman]

MACNA 2013 fish from Koji wada.

an amazing collection.

Ocoulus blennies, 15cm juvenile dragon moray eel and 3 Kamohara blennies to ORA. joining this entourage are nippon butterflies and interrupta angels.

I want the oculus and kamoharai!!!

[yikai]

I want the oculus and kamoharai!!!

we are getting oculus in out next order. he told me these are going to MACNA, and he will catch for us next time.

as for kamoharai, i will request from koji again.

[yikai]

a video by rufus on the hawaiian treasure throve.

all that's missing is a personatus for a clean sweep of all hawaiian gems!

[yikai]

pic updates on the deepwater hawaiian fish.

gorgeous excelsa and basabei butterflies. the excelsa is amazing. caramel gold color with tapering bone white stripes. i love how the 3rd dorsal spine is so long!

a peek at the very shy Liopropom aurora!

[yikai]

cairns marine colini with a baby regal angel. look at how small the colini is. small sizes like this do much better in captivity. cairns marine are MAC certified and only net catch their fish. so colinis from australia are never drugged with cyanide.

live expectancy increases dramatically. however it is still a difficult fish that is shy and need coaxing to get feeding.

[yikai]

a school of very rare and deepwater Chromis mirationis in japan.

[yikai]

a photo from koji's shop from 10 years ago.

despite the abundant interrupta angels, look carefull and what do you see? a hotumatua angel from easter island! now there's no collection and the fish is MIA for a long time.