Category Archives: Fish

Yellow tang

  • Yellow tang feeding
  • Yellow tang feeding on coral
  • Yellow tang
  • Yellow tango
  • Yellow tango
  • Yellow tango

This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Yellow.’ See more offering’s here.

I thought I’d try the WordPress gallery feature for this post, which features yellow tangs, the first fish everyone notices in Hawaii. These bright yellow fish putter about in fairly shallow water, sometimes singly or in pairs, but often in large groups. They feed on algae, and occasionally can be seen cleaning turtles for this purpose. Unlike some fish, juveniles look the same as mature yellow tangs so shoals often contain a variety of sizes. The lower three photos show a pair of yellow tangs engaged in what I think is some kind of mating ritual.

Yellow tang are long-lived fish. They can live to be 20 or 30 years old. They’re also fish that are very popular in the aquarium trade but, since they don’t breed in captivity, all aquarium fish are collected from the wild. Currently, there’s a moratorium on the aquarium fish collection trade here, because of concerns about fish stocks and the sustainability of the practice.

Also posted in response to Becky’s July Squares challenge theme of ‘Perspective.’ See more responses here.

Yellow tang in Hawaii

Things are looking up

In this case, what’s looking up is a giant porcupinefish and it’s looking at me looking down. It looks friendly, but I would never wave a finger in its direction in case it thought it was a gift and kept it.

Posted in response to Becky’s July Squares challenge theme of ‘Perspective.’ See more responses here.

Little fish

A shoal of small fish stretch away into the distance. I think these are juveniles but I’m not sure of which fish. They’re small and silvery and zip around in a harmonious way, changing direction as if connected by invisible wires.

Posted in response to Becky’s July Squares challenge theme of ‘Perspective.’ See more responses here.

Stareye parrotfish

The magenta lines around the eye of this fish identify it as a supermale stareye parrotfish. Parrotfish have initial and terminal phases. Most adults remain in the initial phase throughout their lives as either males or females, though some parrotfish are all females.

Terminal phase parrotfish are called supermales. These are female initial phase fish which have reversed their sex. They will fertilize most of the eggs laid by initial phase females in their territories. When one of these supermales dies, another initial phase female will reverse sex and take its place.

Big and small bluespine unicornfish

Adult bluespine unicornfish, such as the one above, are liberally trimmed with blue on their fins, spines, and tail streamers. They also have a horn jutting from their brows. Juveniles are also tinged with blue, but while they have blue spines, they don’t yet have tail streamers and they don’t have a horn. Once they grow a horn, their cuteness will disappear and they will acquire the grumpy look of most unicornfish.

Yellow tang and little fish

Shoals of yellow tang are the most visible fish on the reefs. Their bright yellow color means that they’re often easily seen from shore. The smaller silvery fish are juveniles, though I don’t know which kind of fish they are. But it’s fun to see them darting around in the shallows and, as seen in nature documentaries on TV, turning en masse from one direction to another when I approach.

Abstracts: Flowery flounder

Time for an eye test as in spot the flowery flounder. I don’t think this one is too hard. Not like the last flounder I saw which settled on a sandy bottom, churned up a bunch of sand, and disappeared beneath it leaving only a tiny, inconspicuous bit of tail identifying where it was.