Fishy Fridays ep. 4

Welcome to the Mediterranean! 

Ahhh, it's so good to be home! Even if it's just through the glass of a couple of Aquaria... ;o)

We group our fish based on their origin, and while the first two groups I introduced you to were present in both the Mediterranean and the North Sea, the next two tanks will be 100% mi casa!!! (well, they also hang out along the northern Atlantic coast of Africa)

Do these guys look familiar to you? They should if you've been hanging around here over the summer! I told stories about each of the three species present in this Aquarium when I took you diving under the Island of Benidorm! ;o) They're all present close to the coast, among the rocks and seagrass beds, usually not much deeper than 60m.

Remember them?

• the Mediterranean rainbow wrasse Coris julis (girelle in French, doncella in Spanish), 

one of the few species in which you can distinguish the sexes thx to the colouring (this one's female).

• the Ornate wrasse Thalassoma pavo (girelle paon in French) 
  

the most colourful fish (that I know of) in the Mediterranean!

• and the black fish in the same picture is the Damself fish Chromis chromis (castagnole in French, castañuela in Spanish), one of the rare fish that eats seagrass Posidonia oceanica.
  

  

Sigh! This used to be such an interesting group to talk about! I could easily spend 1/2h with these guys when they lived here:

and were more abundant. I used to enjoy "surprising" children and "shocking" adults with fishy sex-changes (females into males) and explaining how the castagnole (damselfish) got its name.... Sadly they've been dying out and for some reason no one's headed down South to get any more. Their original tank developed a leak and after months and months of abandon, fixing up etc., it's now being prepared to receive new inmates (a transfer from next week's aquarium).

As I'm tight for time today and don't feel like repeating myself, I'll just shamelessly re-direct you to my original post where I already introduced you to this little guys' stories and their fascinating sex-lives. :p

If you want more scientific facts on them... clicking on their names will send you to their Fishbase pages!

Remember, if you ever want to join in on Fishy Fridays just leave me the link in the comments and I'll sign you up! :o) (and yes, one of these centuries I'll get around to desiginng that logo... I have an idea, just not much time to figure out how to do it with my limited software availability)