Bonaire critter

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

Kharon

Contributor
Messages
4,303
Reaction score
4,371
Location
Upstate NY
# of dives
200 - 499
Unknown.JPG
 
The mark under the eye and the coloration suggest a Saucereye Porgy
 
All I can say is porgy, but if you do any online checking for photos to compare it to, let me say that diving Bonaire I observed porgies can change color, making the patterning go away leading a plain look.

Richard.
 
Yep - Jolthead Porgy - I never in a thousand years would have guessed from the picture in the book, but reading the description and careful cross checking of body parameters (including size) confirmed the ID.

Book description indicates possible "striped or bloched pattern, especially when feeding". I wish these fish would lean to conform to the published pictures and keep their coloration consistant.

Since they probably won't maybe Humann/DeLoach could include variations of common coloration for all the fish instead of just some of them. There are so many immature/juvenile/location variations that they include. Why, in their infinite wisdom don't they include common variations of adults?

Anyway, thanks for the ID. Guess I'll have to go from body shape and not color first. This is the second time the book has baffled me.
 
unfortunately, all of the color phases can occur in most of the species.. nothing species specific about blotches or color. Really they only differ much in display markings on some males. So species IDs are tenuous.

Humann/Deloach cannot put multiple photos of every species without becoming three inches thick and twice as expensive-not their publishing model.
 

Back
Top Bottom