Differentiating juvenile angels.

[yikai]

Many know that juvenile pomacanthid angels are a pain to ID. Dying to know how to differentiate juvenile big angelfishes? here's how.

[yikai]

Juvenile emperor angelfish. Easiest of the lot. identified by white concentric circles towards the tail. The only juvenile angelfish with circles instead of stripes.

[yikai]

Juvenile Koran angelfish. In bigger juveniles, squarish shaped markings are observed perpendicular to the edge of the tail. In juveniles of all sizes, white bars near the tail end are bent to form a semicircle. hence the scientific name, P. semicirculatus. also known as the semicircle angelfish. tail is completely opaque in juveniles. for tiny juveniles, tail is transparent.

[yikai]

majestic angelfish. Easy to differentiate from the rest. tiny juveniles are black with thin neon blue lines. absence of white stripes. slightly larger juveniles have an orange smudge at the top of it's dorsal fin.

[yikai]

Juvenile six bar angels. Pomacanthus (euxiphipos) sextriatus.

Similar to blueface and koran angels, the juv. six bar angels exhibit straighter lines as juveniles, and are white, with little to no blue lines.

[yikai]

The blueface angelfish. Very similar to six bar, but differ by having alternating bands of white and blue. white bars are thicker while blue bars are thinner.

[yikai]

Chrysurus or ear spot angel.

larger juveniles will develop a yellow tail as they grow larger, smaller juveniles will exhibit a yellow tinge on the tail. very small juveniles have clear edged tails with distinct markings. bars are white alternating with blue and are less abundant compared to the other angels.

[yikai]

Asfur angelfish.

juveniles exhibit a yellow crescent in the middle of the body. usually straighter compared to the extremely similar maculosus angel. Stripes are very thin and predominantly blue, with some white in the middle where the yellow crescent is. Tail is always yellow.

[yikai]

maculosus angel.

extremely similar to asfur angel as a juvenile. The yellow crescent exhibited in maculosus angel is usually more bent. A greater amount of white bars are present, and the tail is always white, as compared to asfur which is yellow.

[yikai]

French angelfish.

Black with yellow bands. Extremely similar to grey angelfish. The difference lies in the tails. Juvenile french angelfish have black tails with a yellow edge

[yikai]

Juvenile grey angelfish. Looks identical to french angel, but lacks the yellow edge on the tail.

[yikai]

Queen angelfish. Looks identical to the juvenile blue angelfish. Difference is in the bars. Juvenile queen angels exhibit slightly curved bars.

[yikai]

Juvenile blue angelfish.

Like the queen, difference in the bars. Blue angels exhibit very straight bars.

[yikai]

Juvenile bluering angelfish. Pomacanthus annularis.

Juveniles look very similar to blueface, chrysurus. Difference lies in the tail. Juvenile blue ring angels have entirely clear tails with no markings or colours.

[dreamlover]

Nice ID...

[Eniram]

Well done lemon lemon!

[Jameshong]

!

[yikai]

knowing how to ID them via location is very useful too

this is easy for chrysurus which is found in africa shipments.

maculosus and asfur which are found in red sea shipments.

queen and blue which are found in atlantic ocean shipments

french and grey which are also found in the atlantic.

the rest indo-pacific ones need a bit of experience since they all look rather similar and location is not a factor that can be elimiated.

i did not include juvenile king angels because they are the easiest to differntiate, with clarions being the only other juvenile angel that have similar looking colouration.

juvenile clarions are very rare and hardly ever see so i did not bother.

[pomacanthus]

another note, the gray angel's tail is always trapezoidal, while the french angel's tail is rounded

[pomacanthus]

and I also realised, the queen angel juv has orange tipped dorsal and ventral fins, as compared to the blue which is completely yellow along those edges

[pomacanthus]

how about doing some ID for the apolemichthys angels btw? they're pretty popular in Singapore from what I've heard!

[mug888]

Great help!

[pomacanthus]

thanks mug888, trying to help create better angel tanks

[mokmok]

thanks for sharing

[AMBOI40]

so nice color..wheres the best places to the juveniles.....