Damsel Fish ID - Coco versus Beugregory

[Puffer Fish]

The Destin area, in deeper water, has only two common Damsel fish... the blue/blue-green/blue-green purple guy, and a bright yellow/blue juvenile.

The problem is that the bright yellow/blue juvenile is called a coco damsel, and the grown up one is called a Beugregory....and as there is only one (and they are everywhere) common juvenile and only one adult... one of the two is wrong.. but which one.

Note: In shallow water, while not common, what appears to be an adult coco can be seen.

As there are a lot of them, I spent Saturday getting pictures of the inbetween guys..

So, here is the young one:

Some have two spots.. some have only the one on the base of the tail...the also varies in size.

Coco Damsel right?

The fish then gradually changes colors... oddly, how soon varies tremendously...you will see in the medium size, some changed, some slightly changed, some completely changed.. not sure the driver for this.

But you then get this sort of look:

And this:

The first is a one spot version and the second is a two spot version.. both of which can still be seen.

As they get older, they loose more and more of the yellow and blue in the body..

and the spots cannot be seen.. however, the blue fringing, and the small spots around the eyes stay.

That last image is one of a damsel taking care of it's eggs.

So, to recap.. there are only one yellow baby fish.. all have a black or black/blue dot on the base of their tail, and there are thousands of them. And there is only one adult.. and there are a lot of them...pretty obvious they are the same fish... but which is it?
I suspect they may actually be the same one... as using color differences to define fish (back in the 19th century).. has led to a lot of other similar mistakes...It could also be that on a mixed reef, they had to guess which juvenile went with what adult and they got it wrong...

Any one care to guess?

 

[deborahdelamar]

The Cocoa-Beaugregory ID's are tricky and have recently changed. First of all, I should explain that Cocoas and Beaus are different species -- not different life stages of a single fish.

I'll start with the juvies because they're easier: The large ringed black dot on your scond photo indicates that it's a Cocoa -- the dot is on the fin as well as on the body. The juvenile Beau's dot is only on the fin. Two of your photos show juveniles whose large spots have faded but are still visible enough to ID them as Cocoas.

The dot at the base of the tail used to be an additional ID clue for both juvenile and adult Cocoas (the memory clue was "Cocoa Puff") but this was recently eliminated as some Cocoas don't have the tail spots and some Beaus do.

So it used to be easy to tell the adults apart - Cocoas had Puffs and "No on the Beau." Now it's determined by scale pattern, which is really hard to figure out when the darn fishes are darting all over the place. Unfortunately, both species have similar coloring.

Cocoa scales have dark edges that appear as distinct, parallel, vertical or diagonal lines. The Beaugregory doesn't have obvious lines. You can see the Cocoa lines in your photos.

You mentioned Dusky in an earlier post. Juvenile Duskys are easy -- they are blue on the bottom and orange above -- the memory clue for them is "the sun sets on a Dusky."

Hope this helps!

 

[Puffer Fish]

The Cocoa-Beaugregory ID's are tricky and have recently changed. First of all, I should explain that Cocoas and Beaus are different species -- not different life stages of a single fish.

I'll start with the juvies because they're easier: The large ringed black dot on your scond photo indicates that it's a Cocoa -- the dot is on the fin as well as on the body. The juvenile Beau's dot is only on the fin. Two of your photos show juveniles whose large spots have faded but are still visible enough to ID them as Cocoas.

The dot at the base of the tail used to be an additional ID clue for both juvenile and adult Cocoas (the memory clue was "Cocoa Puff") but this was recently eliminated as some Cocoas don't have the tail spots and some Beaus do.

So it used to be easy to tell the adults apart - Cocoas had Puffs and "No on the Beau." Now it's determined by scale pattern, which is really hard to figure out when the darn fishes are darting all over the place. Unfortunately, both species have similar coloring.

Cocoa scales have dark edges that appear as distinct, parallel, vertical or diagonal lines. The Beaugregory doesn't have obvious lines. You can see the Cocoa lines in your photos.

You mentioned Dusky in an earlier post. Juvenile Duskys are easy -- they are blue on the bottom and orange above -- the memory clue for them is "the sun sets on a Dusky."

Hope this helps!

Then we don't have any Dusky's here.. and that blue green damsel is not a dusky.. then what is it?

 

[Puffer Fish]

The Cocoa-Beaugregory ID's are tricky and have recently changed. First of all, I should explain that Cocoas and Beaus are different species -- not different life stages of a single fish.

I'll start with the juvies because they're easier: The large ringed black dot on your scond photo indicates that it's a Cocoa -- the dot is on the fin as well as on the body. The juvenile Beau's dot is only on the fin. Two of your photos show juveniles whose large spots have faded but are still visible enough to ID them as Cocoas.

The dot at the base of the tail used to be an additional ID clue for both juvenile and adult Cocoas (the memory clue was "Cocoa Puff") but this was recently eliminated as some Cocoas don't have the tail spots and some Beaus do.

So it used to be easy to tell the adults apart - Cocoas had Puffs and "No on the Beau." Now it's determined by scale pattern, which is really hard to figure out when the darn fishes are darting all over the place. Unfortunately, both species have similar coloring.

Cocoa scales have dark edges that appear as distinct, parallel, vertical or diagonal lines. The Beaugregory doesn't have obvious lines. You can see the Cocoa lines in your photos.

You mentioned Dusky in an earlier post. Juvenile Duskys are easy -- they are blue on the bottom and orange above -- the memory clue for them is "the sun sets on a Dusky."

Hope this helps!

If they are Cocoa's that works for me.. their coloring does not match any pictures I can find.. but they are all clearly one species of fish.

 

[Puffer Fish]

By the way, thanks for the info... the scale id is easy, as I have pictures to look at.. and the reeffish have that soft scale look, without the black outline.

Gee.. Uncle Ricky and Andy both got that wrong.. I feel so much better now.

Now just need the blue guy.