NEWS113
20
Many fish enthusiasts regard coral reefs as the epitome of species diversity
among the fishes.That is not quite correct. In reality there are "only" around
2,000 speciesof truecoral fishes,while todatearound32,000 fish speciesare
known intotal,abouthalfofwhich live inthesea.Ofthe2,000coral-fishspecies
onlysome200are regular in the trade,and the restare regardedas rarities.We
would like to introduceyou tosomeof these raritieshere.
Rarities for themarine
aquarium
byLevinLocke
MarineFishes
he majority of these rarities are not,
however,rare Inthewild inthesensethat
therearen'tmanyofthem.Fundamentallythat
sortof thingdoesn'toccur inthecaseofsmall
fish species that live in the sea, as some are
eaten every day and the population must
ultimately compensate. For this reason
collecting for the aquariumposes no serious
threattowildpopulations .
Chaetodontoplusconspicillatus
This angelfish comes fromway outside the
regionswhere ornamental fish collectors are
normallyactive:itwasdescribedfromtheLord
HoweIslands,anditsdistributionextendsfrom
there toNewCaledoniaand theGreatBarrier
ReefoffAustralia.Collectingornamental fishes
is strictly regulated there, and so invariably
onlya fewspecimensmaketheirway intothe
trade,and,naturally, theyarecorrespondingly
expensive. The common name Conspicuous
Angelfishappearstobebasedonthemisinter-
pretation of conspicillatus, which does not
mean conspicuousbut is actuallyamade-up
Latinwordmeaning "spectacled" (spectacles
Chaetodontoplusconspicillatus
AllePhotos:FrankSchäfer
Chaetodontoplus conspicillatus
- doesn't
"SpectacledAngelfish" suit this fish?
hadn't been invented in Roman times). It is
used as the specific epithet for a variety of
creatureswith a ring around the eye, and as
SpectacledAngelfish is farmore appropriate,
wewillusethenamehere.
The Spectacled Angelfish grows only to
around 10 cm long andhence is one of the
medium-sized angelfishes. It usually presents
fewproblems as regards accepting food,and
one must always reckon it attacking
invertebrates inthereefaquarium.
Holacanthusclarionensis
Much of what has been said about the
Holacanthusclarionensis
,a specimenmeasuringaround12 cm longand in theprocessof changing to
adult coloration.
T
