Hybrid Yellow Tang?

[chazz-66]

Saw this on the big auction site.I think this guy is trying to scam! I have never seen or heard of one,anybody else?

[redwinger]

Looks like he was written on with a magic marker.

[chazz-66]

Thats what I thought too! It looks very sickly too

[sls]

i just saw this the other day. i wonder how long until that line disappears. anybody bid on it???

[Flame]

Hmm looks fake from here

[salty65gal]

I thought everyone's yellow tangs looked like that

[capman]

I have no idea whether this is genuine, but all sorts of strange anomalies crop up in populations of animals and plants, and I would not be at all surprised if this was this fish's genuine color pattern. Yellow tangs and scopas tangs are really close relatives (and there are other relatives that are striped), so it is not a huge stretch to imagine a mutation in a yellow tang producing dark pigment like this. I don't see why this necessarily has to be a hybird though.

Consider all the strange color and fin variations in the various strains of freshwater fish like angelfish. These were not created by humans. They are the products of random mutations (that in most cases would be disadvantageous in the wild) that cropped up in captive populations and selected for. Such mutations are not unique to captivity. In fact, the variations produced by such mutations in wild populations are the raw material that natural selection acts upon...which is how there ended up being such a huge diversity of fish species.

The fish doesn't look sickly to me. Just looks like it is stressed out from being in a bare tank.

[Energy]

I own a yellow SCOPAS Tang. It is a rare form of the scopas (brown)Tang . This Tang is yellow as a Yellow Tang but without the attitude and it can change colors to a degree. Like Bill said mutations occur.

[new reef retard]

Believe it or not I think this is tattooed. I have seen ciclids like this that were tattooed by putting ink in to the skin under the scales.

[smeese]

I doubt you could tatoo the fins but maybe

[ZEKESTER]

that looks so fake! Almost makes you want to buy it and find out!

[512148048]

i agree with the black magic marker comment i think something isnt right they will blame the color loss on the poor water quality or something if it loses its color

[Loverotties]

It's got to be a joke!

[sls]

for a starting bid of 100$ i dont think its a joke.

[capman]

This could very well be a fake.

But....

Think about all the different color and pattern variations we see in different fish species. Reef fish in particular (even fish within a given genus such as Zebrasoma). Where did all these variations come from?

They all started out as freakish mutations in some ancestral species. Mutations are random, and most of them tend to produce organisms that are less well adapted than the current norm for that species. Lots of mutations are even lethal, or nearly so. However, once in awhile there are mutations that crop up that not only are not harmful, but they actually produce characteristics that improve the orgnanism's ability to survive and reproduce. If that individual bearing this new, beneficial mutation leaves more offspring in future generations than other individuals, then that mutation will increase in abundance in the population and may eventually become the norm. And if the new trait is beneficial, then there will probably be further selection for additional small mutaions that occur by chance but happen to refine the trait (e.g., one might imagine a crude stripe being beneficial for some reason, and then futher natural selection or sexual selection might result in refinement of the stripe if individuals with srtripes with cleaner, crisper borders have an adaptive advantage – e.g., maybe ones with cleaner stripes are more attractive to mates???

In the case of this oddly colored tang, the mutation that produced this stripe (if we assume for the moment that this stripe is actually genetically determined and not a haox) apparently was not harmful enough to prevent this tang from surviving in the wild so far. Most likely, this would not give this fish an adaptive advantage either, but who knows (and no-one will know at this point since the fish is no longer in the wild)?

Single-gene mutations can produce dramatic-looking results sometimes. Again, referring to freshwater angelfish, consider marble angels, black angels, gold angels, half-black angels, veil angels and others. These traits are all determined by a single gene, and they are all dramatically different from the wild fish...indeed, compared to the wild fish, they are pretty freakish. In my many batches of baby angels I have raised up over the years, I have seen some pretty strange things, including some individuals with two anal fins side-by-side (similar to the double tails of many goldfish breeds).