Clown Patterns: Observations From the Wild

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Fishtal
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Clown Patterns: Observations From the Wild - Sunday, February 27, 2011 6:24 PM
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I was discussing clown patterns with Dan Navin in PNG. I sent him a link to my Picasso journal and he had these interesting comments:
 
cool link. yeah, I've never seen a picasso or platinum percula in the wild, although i will say that the percs, and all species of clowns for that matter, seem to express more variations in their patterning in PNG than anywhere else in the world. This has been "confirmed" by alot of people with extensive trade time having seen fish from all over. While in most areas it is rare to see a wild clown that doesn't fit the traditional mold, in PNG it seems to be rare to see any two clowns that look exactly alike. This is especially true for maroons. The most extreme was the lightning maroon, but we always see broken bars, white or black spots, missing bars, etc... it is actually rare to see a "perfect" 3 bar maroon clown here. Apparently this is very different from most other areas of the world, where all the clowns look almost identical. 
 
 
The bars on a clown do serve them well, helping them to blend into the tentacles of their anemones. Sometimes while diving I wont realize that there are multiple clowns hiding in an anemone until after I am reviewing the pictures at home. I suspect that clowns exhibiting atypical barring in the wild would not have the same camouflage advantage, and get picked off before reaching sexual maturity. in most cases.
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saltydog
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Re:Clown Patterns: Observations From the Wild - Monday, February 28, 2011 2:17 AM
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Thanks for sharing Tal
As mentioned in chat once before, we can't import PNG fish in Aus.  Apparently no one has had the need/time to do the paper work involved. We also can't import tank bred fish either. So the only percs we get here with variation is wild caught from the Solomons.
 
Chris