Juvenile fish from Bali

This little guy was in 50 feet off Bali at Tulamben on a dusk dive.

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another upload attempt

Karen

I think this is an Oxycheilinus of some sort, maybe O. orientalis, the Oriental Maori Wrasse. I sent a photo similar yours with the green spots to Fishbase a couple of years ago, suggesting it might be a juvenile O. orientalis. They got Dr Randall to look at it. He said he had no records of wrasse like this. I have seen similar ones since so would also be interested to hear from anybody who has any ideas.

Just been doing a bit more research and notice a photo on Fishbase of Oxycheilinus unifasciatus - http://www.fishbase.org/Photos/PicturesSummary.php?StartRow=0&ID=5605&what=species&TotRec=7. This has the green spots which may help.

Hi Jim & Karen,

My guess would be O. arenatus (speckled maori wrasse) or O. digramma (cheek-lined wrasse). I see the images you mentioned are listed on fishbase under O. arenatus, but O. digramma has an image from Randall that looks similar but with fewer and less pronounced green spots, but they may simply fade out with age.

http://fishbase.sinica.edu.tw/photos/PicturesSummary.php?StartRow=5&ID=5599&what=species&TotRec=13

Bart

In preparation for my Red Sea trip I'm going through images from my 2011 Red Sea trip and was surprised to find another juvenile Oxycheilinus spec. with green dots on its flank. O. digramma (Cheeklined wrasse) was very common, with O. mentalis (mental wrasse) present but less frequent. I had tentatively ID'd it as a juvi mental wrasse but may have to change that to cheeklined.

I enjoy finding juvenile fish in the shallow waters but it can be frustrating as ID tools are limited.

Bart