Damselfish Id

[Donya]

I'm thinking Amblyglyphidodon...but beyond that I am stuck. Sort of leaning towards A. indicus but really not sure.

When totally freaked out, it shows very faintly darkened vertical stripes. In good lighting and when not totally freaking out it's a very pale blue, almost white. There is no hint of any other color anywhere on it though.

 

[crazyforcordoras]

My lfs has one of these... Interested to see what species though.

 

[Chad]

I think you're right...perhaps A. leucogaster. The caudal fin is a bit off, but that could just be the angle of the photo. It's a fish that has quite a bit of color variation in the species with one of the morphs being nearly white with only a little color on the dorsal and caudal margins.

 

[Donya]

I should have mentioned that one possible confound with this individual is that it has had the living snot beaten out of it several times during its stay at the LFS. It has survived several waves of aggressive damsel shipments (yellow-tails and blue devils) that did a fair bit of fin-destruction, so I don't know whether the repeated damage will have caused anything to grow back in a funny shape; that tail was basically gone at one point a couple months back. It was one of those unexpected "filler" fish in a batch of other standard sorts of damsels back in the early summer if not earlier than that.

Maybe I'll just have to wait and see if a good diet makes the colors a bit more distinctive. I'll try to get some more pics when it's not freaking out.

My lfs has one of these... Interested to see what species though.

Just the one? I wonder if it was another accident like this one. I can't ever recall seeing a tank full of them at any LFS, even when I lived elsewhere.

 

[Chad]

A lot of damsels have a v-shaped tail, this one doesn't seem to from the photo which was part where my guess came from.

I do think that a photo in a month will give a much better result.

 

[Donya]

I think there are still some munches out of the lower part of that fin...it does look a bit odd but it's hard to see exactly with the fins being so transparent.

I do think that a photo in a month will give a much better result.

Probably so. Even after just sitting overnight in an actually peaceful tank for a change (well...there is a rather confused cardinal trying to court it, but that's not aggressive at least ), the blue tones have really brightened up and I think I'm seeing some darker blue on the leading edge of the anal fin.

 

[Donya]

Just thought I would post an update on this fish, since I still have it and am no closer to a solid ID unfortunately. He eats like a pig...but I don't think he's grown more than a millimeter or two in length, if even that. Still looks pretty much like in the pic here, just with the bent fin rays fixed having fixed themselves. The blue color is a bit brighter I guess than on day 1, but it's still just uniform light blue with the occasional bit of darkening on edge of the anal fin and faint vertical stripes that only show up if I accidentally spook him. I think he's picked up a tiny amount of body depth over time but that's about it. His cardinal buddy was originally smaller and has out-grown him by quite a bit...and is still doing courtship dances every day. At least they're a happy couple even if seriously confused.

 

[MBOU]

Bit of a random question but could it be a colour variation of a more common species? As in... leucistic form? Blue Eyed White. Just a random contemplation.

 

[Donya]

Some months back I saw another one in with a sea of little yellow things that looked identical otherwise, but now I think that was actually two different types that happen to look the same as youngsters (after all, my yellow damsel that I now think is Pomacentrus sp. started out looking just like that - very different from the adult shape and caused me to mis-ID as a result). However, I was lucky today and I might have actually found the answer. One store I happened to stop by today got in a shipment of just these little blue fish that actually contained some more mature individuals, including perfect gradient from exactly what mine looks like to what the larger ones should look like with intermediate examples (maybe mine is stunted from a hard early life? No idea). The larger ones actually looked to be Amblyglyphidodon curacao based on the stripes, which was not what I was expecting really. There were enough intermediate stages present in the group though that I have no doubt I was seeing the same species from small to large. It may be that there are some color forms within that; some of the little blue guys had yellow showing, but others had absolutely none. So, it could still be some color morph stuff going on.