[Samper]

I have had these two fish in hyposalinity for the past 2 weeks. I ordered them as a mated pair and they sure seem to act like it however the male has a white tip on top of the caudal fin and his coloration is somewhat different. I don't have a reference to be sure and was wondering what you thought about it. Thanks

[leebca]

Actually, they both seem to vary a little bit from the 'normal' markings. They may have some genetic mix in their backgrounds. They are A. clarkii in my opinion. The female white stripe doesn't extend to the entire dorsal side like in many of this species.

[zhenya]

Chuck,

I agree with Lee. They bot seem to be Clark's anemonefish albeit with some variations in the markings. I'll add picture of mine for reference and you can see that it too has a bit different striping.




PS> On a side note, I thought at the begining(when I first got the fish) that it was A.chrysopterus because of the tail and different markings. However, as fish matured more and more I realised that it was some different genetic marking variants of the Clark's anemonefish.

[SouthBayPhoto]

Originally Posted by zhenya

Why such the long face? Doesn't he/she like it's picture taken?

[Samper]

I know that their markings are highly variable but that white tip was really throwing me off. Thank you both for your imput.

[vaporize]

Both are very obvious A.clarkii pattern, pretty common color morphs amongst Indonesia shipments.

The actual coloration might be more of a physiological & environmental as suppose to genetics. There are certain patterns & colors in clownfish that are genetics, but the melanism (degree of dark/black) is more of a physiological and environmental (anemone type, water depth).

HTH

P.S. A.clarkii has 16 'common' color morph variations. And that's specifically to the A.clarkii species, not the clarkii complex (including other similiar clarkii body shapes such as blue stripe, akindynos, etc.)