Dartfish hold a very special place in our reefing hearts, and none more so than the magnificent firefish. We absolutely adore theNemateleotris萤火虫species, so we definitely perked up when we came across this incredibly rare firefish hybrid.
常规和紫色的萤火虫从日本水域齐全，但虽然Helfrich的Firefish已被视为那里，但绝对是在其范围分布的边缘。这并不奇怪，那种野生的Helfrich的萤火虫混合动力在日本，在日本岛屿的极端南部的伊尼诺贝布 - 吉马，并被Kazutoshi Uehara拍照GT Divers.
The common firefish has a pale front part of the body with a darker red tail, while the Helfrich’s firefish has a dark lavender front body and pale colored tail. Interestingly, the dark coloration of these two species was cancelled out by the pale colors, resulting in a ghostly looking hybrid ofN. magnifica和N. helfrichi.
The resulting offspring is a ghostly looking fish with just a hint of yellow coloration in the dorsal, anal and tail fin. One other nice touch is how the straight fin of the common firefish and the stubby fin of the helfrich’s have combined into a ‘stairstep’ pattern.
萤火虫are incredibly conservative in appearance across their ranges, and we’ve documented萤火虫x purple firefish hybridsin the past. But these images represent the first confirmed sightings of hybrid firefish involving helfrich’s firefish,N. helfrichi,now we have to wonder what a helfrich’s x purple firefish hybrid might look like. [GT Divers]
