The Golden Hamlet,Hypoplectrus gummigutta, is one of the most striking small fish of the Caribbean, and it also happens to be one of the most elusive. We have revered this fish for over twenty years and during that time we’ve only ever seen less than a handful of live aquarium specimens.
我们与金小村庄的最后一次相遇是在马特·旺德尔（Matt Wandell）的家庭水族馆里way back in 2013, that specimen became a permanent resident at theSteinhart aquarium从那以后我们再也没有见过。黄金小村庄的稀有性在很大程度上是由于小村庄在水族馆世界中并不特别受欢迎，并且由于其在野外的稀缺而变得更加复杂。
Interestingly, while the golden hamlet can be infrequently sighted throughout much of the Caribbean, it’s usually only disparate specimens sighted here and there which makes us wonder how they can breed and occur in isolated regions.Hypoplectrus gummiguttais hard to find in the greater Caribbean but there appears to be a localized abundance of the golden hamlet around the Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua although we don’t know of any collecting of ornamental fish for the aquarium hobby from this country.
We were incredibly fortunate to receive a well conditioned aquarium specimen as a gift from Takayuki Kamata, better known as the editor of珊瑚礁建造者日本。只要我们知道这一点，金小村庄就一直在我们的“圣杯鱼”愿望清单中列入我们的简短清单。
At the moment the golden hamlet is just shy of four inches long with the lovely blue edged black facial mask with a yellow body and bright yellow fins that are interrupted only by a dusky coloration towards the anterior region of the body. As the fish grows the body will become slightly taller, developing a kind of ‘shoulder’ above the gills and the dusky coloration will be completely replaced by a saturated yellow coloration which will only serve to highlight the beautiful facial markings ofHypoplectrus gummigutta。
