Amphiprion clarkii “Ningaloo Black Clarkii”, Captive Bred

The “Australian” Black Clarkii is a rather unique fish. About 10 years ago, a wave of very different looking wild-collected Black Clarkii type clownfish showed up from Australia; it’s taken a lot of reverse engineering to figure this out, but apparently these are from Northwestern Australia, and most all photographs of this form are found when looking at dive photography from Ningaloo. This fish should not be confused with various melanistic forms of Amphiprion clarkii that can be found throughout the “species” range; the Australian Black Clarkii, perhaps better called a Ningaloo Black Clarkii, stands apart.  Note, the image of two fish shows a pair of adults.

First it is black no matter what the anemone host; the only host-driven melanism may be the change of of the snout color from yellow to gray, although this may be due to sex or simply maturity. By the same token, the golden hue along the shoulders (upper front back) seems to disappear based on host choice, but again, could also simply be age or sex. The the body shape is different than most any other Clarkii; this fish has a more slender build. The shape of the body stripe is often different, sweeping towards the posterior at the top in many fish.  Given the geographic range, it is possible that someday, this fish might wind up described as a new, distinct species.

It’s unclear if these are collected and exported with any sort of regularity, but it seems that both Bali Aquarich in Indonesia, and Sustainable Aquatics in the US, have broodstock for this unique geographical variant and are producing them as captive-bred fish.