Dartfish hold a very special place in our reefing hearts, and none more so than the magnificent firefish. We absolutely adore theNemateleotris火鱼species, so we definitely perked up when we came across this incredibly rare firefish hybrid.
日本水域有充分记录的普通和紫色的火鱼，但是尽管那里已经看到了赫尔夫里奇的火鱼，但它绝对是其范围分布的边缘。那么，这款狂野的Helfrich的Firefish Hybrid在日本的Okinoerabu-Jima，在日本群岛的最南端看到，并由Kazutoshi Uehara拍摄，这也就不足为奇了。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.
火鱼are incredibly conservative in appearance across their ranges, and we’ve documented火鱼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]
