This clown anemonefish can be recognised by its orange colour with three white bars and black markings on the fins. It grows to about eight centimeters (three inches)in length. One can differentiate between Percula (true) and Ocellaris (false) by their respective colors and patterns. Ocellaris are usually less vibrantly colored, and have 11 dorsal fin-spines instead of 10, as on the Percula. Also the species have different eye arrangements, Percula have bright orange irises, making their eyes appear smaller whereas Ocellaris have grey/orange irises which make the species eyes appear bigger. There is a rare melanistic variety hailing from the reefs around Darwin, Australia, that is a dark black colour with the normal white stripes. Although not common in the wild, they are becoming more and more popular in the aquarium hobby.
The species Amphiprion Ocellaris are related to the class Osteichthyes which contains bony fish and ray-finned fish. A. Ocellaris is the most basal species in the genus Amphiprion which is closely related to the genera Premnas. The species most closely related ancestor is Amphiprion Percula, the Orange Clownfish. It is thought that A. Ocellaris specialized after diverging from the Premnas genera, scientific evidence confirms that all clownfish belonging to the genus Amphiprion could withstand the stings of only one type of anemone, after further diverging the 28 different species of clownfish including A. Ocellaris specialized to be able to resist the poisonous stings of many different species of anemone.
Comments
Post has no comments.