A cup of fish

Sometimes new discovered fish end up with remarkable names. Most names refer to particularities of the body, the place of origin or the name of the first collector. The basslet pictured here, described in December 2013, is named for its coloration. The authors have explained that the overall coloration of the basslet reminded them of cappuccino. So Starbucks, there's a new item you may add to the list: Acanthoplesiops cappuccino.  

The first desciption is available online: Gill, Anthony C., Sergey V. Bogorodsky & Ahmad O. Mal (2013): "Acanthoplesiops cappuccino, a new species of acanthoclinine fish from the Red Sea (Teleostei: Plesiopidae)" - Zootaxa 3750 (3): 216–222

Prints, Cards, Tees and more (like the great mug pictres underneath!) are available at my printshop.

The Real Thing

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It's nice to mesh around (on paper that is) with fish. Yesterday's entry is a nice example, but  Copperband Butterflies are natural beauties. Is there anything which can beat the 'real thing'?

Lance

Buy this item, or one of the other items of this series, in my ETSY shop.

I've been working on a small sculpture lately, based on the beautiful "Copperband Butterflyfish" or Chelmon rostratus. These long beaked coral fish, are found in thePacific and Indian Ocean, fluttering around coral reefs.

Copperbands are easily identified by the yellow banding and long snout, their compressed, deep-bodied form, long dorsal and posterior fins and most of all the typical, vertical yellow stripes on a greyish-white background.

First designs of my sculpture not only emphasize the long and slender snout, but also the ocellus (dark eye-spot) on the dorsal fin. As the sculpture isn't meant to be a realistic image, I have played with the Copperband's specific characters by enlarging the snout and pelvic fins and cutting out the ocellus and one of the vertical bands.
The long beak is used to eat invertebrates, hidden within coral rock. One of the main reasons of its popularity in the aquarium trade as it also eats glass anemones, Aiptasia, which is considered a plague in the marine aquarium. The long needle-like beak inspired me to name the sculpture  'Lance' (as in 'lancet'). 

As the sketches hereby indicate, it will be available in several color patterns. Size approximately 20cm. 

Multicolored ID's of the image above are available in mu ETSY-shop. ID's, short for Identicals, are handmade copies, similar to the orginal., handmade and therefor not 100% identical but they are 100% original!
Note this series of copies is limited to 30 ID´s.

Eat dirt.

We humans prefer to chew chewing gum, or some other stuff which probably isn't to good for your health (or maybe addicting...). Some fish just like to chew upon some heavier stuff, like gravel! Valenciennea eats dirt. The grudgeons chew upon it, spit out the real dirt through their gills trying to keep anything eatable within their mouth. A great thing to obseerve in an aquarium. It will surprise anyone who never has seen this behavior before. To the Valenciennea it is simply a matter of survival.
So...anyone in for a Gravel Burger?

P.S. Valenciennea comes in a wide variety of colors. Most species have a rather dull greyish body with vertical bars in red, ore brownish red. Some however show great coloration, like this Valeciennea strigata, well known for its striking yellow head, with blue iridescent stripes.