An Interesting Immature At the City

   Feeling the need to get out of town, Sandra and I packed our cooler this morning and headed south to City of Refuge.  It only takesforty five minutes even if

Reticulated Butterflyfish  Chaetodon reticulatus

you take the shady, windy road past the Painted Church.   Leaving all the farms and B&Bs in our wake, we arrived at City in time to get a killer parking spot and our choice of seats at one of the picnic tables.  While we were dining sumptuously on on banana bread and cold coffee, we were joined by a group of students and their professor from Willakenzie University.  Or rather they descended upon us and set up camp at the other end of our table. 

     The professor was a lady a decade or so younger (and a stone or two heavier) than your reporter.  Thus she was, therefore, neither youthful nor remarkably obese, but she made up for all this with a surfeit of pomposity.  While I was minding my own business, she revealed some platitudes sprinkled occasionally with bits of error, sort of like the nuts in my banana bread, upon which I was doing my best not

Pyramid Butterflyfish, City of Refuge, May 2013

to choke.

    Soon she sent her charges out to identify the fish.  Actually, she reminded them which fish they were supposed to identify.  As best I could tell, they were given 12 species.  Having spent a good many years in the village where one might find Willakenzie University, I have a certain feeling about the place.  Mostly it seemed a home for pampered dilletantes.  But twelve species of fish?  Back in the day, at that sprawling monstrosity named for the Father of Our Country, I was held responsible for 100 species of birds.  It is my contention that bird watching is three times more difficult than identifying reef fish.  You do the math.  By the way, this has a lot to do with why I switched to watching fish!

    To be fair to the budding ichthyologists from WU, their professor sent them into the water at 9:15, so maybe only 12 species of fish were awake.  Sandra and I followed  half an hour later.  In short order we saw a single Reticulated Butterfly.  He was dodging in and out of the coral, much like the Potter's Angelfish that was hiding out in the same patch.  We swam to the right, through a large numbre of Thompson's

 Butterflyfish.  The water was warm and fairly clear.  Apropos of the plethora of Thompson's Butterflies, Sandra said, "Wouldn't it be great to see a Pyramid."  Her wish is my command and I hope you enjoy the photo of the single Pyramid that was schooling with its dozens of (Hemitaurichthys) cousins.

    Not quite frozen, we swam out to the island in front of the Two Step entry, where we found the fish pictured at right swimming in about 40 feet of water.  I did my best work, diving fifteen feet to snap pictures of the fish still way below me.  Having no idea what it was, we hurried home, looked at our picture and started working through the books.   We concluded that it might be a developing Black Surgeon, Ctenochaetus hawaiiensis, which is orange with blue trailing edges as a keiki and (not surprisingly) black as an adult.  We forwarded the photo with our best guess to John Hoover and Dr. Randall.  Jack Randall wrote back:    

C. binotatus  (photo borrowed)

When juvenile Ctenochaetus hawaiiensis have a  pale pinkish yellow tail, the body should be orange with purple chevrons.  Maybe it's C. strigosus with the tail as the last bit of juvenile coloration remaining.  Or a juvenile of C. binotatus, hence a first record for Hawai'i (if you have my South Pacific fish book, see page 584).

   Suffice it to say, the fish we photographed does not have a gold eye ring.  And it definitely has a face lighter than the body.  Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion.

jeff