Apolemichthys guezei - mythical angelfish SPOTTED AGAIN @ Reunion Island

[Unique Fins]

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Hello Reef2Reef! I thought it would be interesting to make a article highlighting this uber rare angelfish. This is only the 3rd time one has been seen & photographed alive! I hope you all enjoy the read
~ Eric from Unique Fins
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Apolemichthys guezei is a deep dwelling elusive species of Angelfish endemic to Reunion Island "La Reunion", a French territory off the cost of Madagascar, basically a mid point to Mauritius. Reunion Island is also home to Centropyge Debelius, the rare $15,000 Debelius Angelfish periodically seen at depths deeper than 45m.

Once considered a myth, the Reunion Island Angelfish was first caught in gill nets around 60m (~200ft), and officially described by Jack Randall in the 80s. As the story goes, Jack dove the dropoff and around the area for 2 weeks at the same depth and never saw this species again. It wasn't until another 20 years that the Guezei Angelfish was spotted again, photographed by Hugues Vitry at 65m. Another decade later, in 2019, Patrick Plantard, a technical rebreather diver based in Reunion photographed for this fish for the second time in history at 90m deep (300ft). Jake Adams released an article on Reef Builders crowning this species the "Bigfoot of Rare Fish".

Fast forward to today, Patrick Plantard released another photo of Apolemichthys guezei, (the 3rd time this species was ever photographed) and reported that this specimen was spotted at Caesar's Rock, at a depth of 90m (300ft)!

Photo Credit: Patrick Plantard
In the aquarium trade:

This species has never been collected for the aquarium trade. There is a couple reasons for this: there is no active aquarium collection in Reunion (apparently the islands waters are protected) (however, I couldn't find a solid source for this).
Even if allowed, Reunion is also very remote so it would be close to impossible for collection, not even considering this species is one of the most cryptic angelfish in the world and likey won't be found.

The closest we got to a Guezei being collected was in 2018 when T. Bennett, a deep water fish collector was collecting in Mauritius and stumbled upon what was appeared to be a Guezei, but turned out to be a bispo (tiger tail coral beauty).

While doing further research into this species, I uncovered a decade old thread about a user who met with Daniel Pelicier, a prominent deepwater fish collector who was based out of Mauritius collecting Centropyge Debelius. (If this name rings a bell, you have probably heard of him for his namesake fish The Peliciers Perchlet, which he discovered deep diving in Mauritius) according to this thread Daniel said he had dove to 100m (330ft) countless times in Mauritus and Reunion and never spotted a Guezei. His theory was they are more commonly found deep, such as 300m (990ft), however this was never confirmed. Whether Apolemichthys guezei is just a very cryptic species, occurs in deeper water, or has an abundant population in a undiscovered place we may never know.

- Eric from Unique Fins

Thank you for reading! If you have any questions or want to pick my brain about anything please comment!

 

[Unique Fins]

The two other pictures in existence

 

[i cant think]

It’s not bad but honestly… for a rarity it looks bland. Maybe future photos will show off how it truly looks?

 

[LaloJ]

Impressive photographs, I remember the excitement of many angelfishes fans when that news came out and seeing the photographs that Plantard took at that recent time was great, likewise Plantard also photographed the first specimen of Chaetodontoplus niger in the adult stage. I'm an angelfish lover, and when I saw these photos 4 years ago it was incredible, in those days I had recently read about the theory that A.guezei was considered a hybrid of another pair of Apolemichthys species and perhaps it had simply crossed into Hugues Vitry camera a few years ago, and it was surprising when 3 or 4 days later I read about Patrick Plantard sightings, a 'mythological' fish was present again, and for me it's great to see that it does exist and it's a beautiful and interesting fish, with a very elusive nature.

 

[LaloJ]

Impressive photographs, I remember the excitement of many angelfishes fans when that news came out and seeing the photographs that Plantard took at that recent time was great, likewise Plantard also photographed the first specimen of Chaetodontoplus niger in the adult stage. I'm an angelfish lover, and when I saw these photos 4 years ago it was incredible, in those days I had recently read about the theory that A.guezei was considered a hybrid of another pair of Apolemichthys species and perhaps it had simply crossed into Hugues Vitry camera a few years ago, and it was surprising when 3 or 4 days later I read about Patrick Plantard sightings, a 'mythological' fish was present again, and for me it's great to see that it does exist and it's a beautiful and interesting fish, with a very elusive nature.

 

[i cant think]

Impressive photographs, I remember the excitement of many angelfishes fans when that news came out and seeing the photographs that Plantard took at that recent time was great, likewise Plantard also photographed the first specimen of Chaetodontoplus niger in the adult stage. I'm an angelfish lover, and when I saw these photos 4 years ago it was incredible, in those days I had recently read about the theory that A.guezei was considered a hybrid of another pair of Apolemichthys species and perhaps it had simply crossed into Hugues Vitry camera a few years ago, and it was surprising when 3 or 4 days later I read about Patrick Plantard sightings, a 'mythological' fish was present again, and for me it's great to see that it does exist and it's a beautiful and interesting fish, with a very elusive nature.

Out of curiosity, if this fish was seen as ‘mythical’ and only pictured (and likely seen) twice in the past - now 3 times - how has it been given a scientific name already?
Most other species took scientific research into their DNA before gaining a scientific name so surely they would have to gain that information before being able to confirm this fish isn’t simply a genetic mutation or hybrid of another species. Unless ‘Apolemichthys guezei’ isn’t a true confirmed scientific name? As another way new species gain a true name, they have a holotype and generally a few other specimens that show differentiation within a species (Isotypes and Paratypes). And they can’t really Identify a fish through two, or likely when it was ‘named’ one single photo. They can probably guess it’s a new species but without the genetic information we may find this is simply just a hybrid found between other angels in this area. Possibly a Gold Flake (there have been reports of this species in the Indian Ocean) and Xanthurus Cream (an Indian Ocean ‘endemic’).

 

[Unique Fins]

Impressive photographs, I remember the excitement of many angelfishes fans when that news came out and seeing the photographs that Plantard took at that recent time was great, likewise Plantard also photographed the first specimen of Chaetodontoplus niger in the adult stage. I'm an angelfish lover, and when I saw these photos 4 years ago it was incredible, in those days I had recently read about the theory that A.guezei was considered a hybrid of another pair of Apolemichthys species and perhaps it had simply crossed into Hugues Vitry camera a few years ago, and it was surprising when 3 or 4 days later I read about Patrick Plantard sightings, a 'mythological' fish was present again, and for me it's great to see that it does exist and it's a beautiful and interesting fish, with a very elusive nature.

That's a very interesting theory, I've been following Patrick for awhile and it looks like he deep dives about 2 times a week, so only being spotted twice by him after hundreds of dives shows just how rare this is.

 

[Unique Fins]

Out of curiosity, if this fish was seen as ‘mythical’ and only pictured (and likely seen) twice in the past - now 3 times - how has it been given a scientific name already?
Most other species took scientific research into their DNA before gaining a scientific name so surely they would have to gain that information before being able to confirm this fish isn’t simply a genetic mutation or hybrid of another species. Unless ‘Apolemichthys guezei’ isn’t a true confirmed scientific name? As another way new species gain a true name, they have a holotype and generally a few other specimens that show differentiation within a species (Isotypes and Paratypes). And they can’t really Identify a fish through two, or likely when it was ‘named’ one single photo. They can probably guess it’s a new species but without the genetic information we may find this is simply just a hybrid found between other angels in this area. Possibly a Gold Flake (there have been reports of this species in the Indian Ocean) and Xanthurus Cream (an Indian Ocean ‘endemic’).

It was described off a single specimen, Jack looked for more but couldn't find them so he just went off the single one. This happens some times for example Centropyge Abei, also deepwater, was discribed off a single holotype.

But that is an interesting point, we would have to get another preserved specimen to truly know

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Pretty interesting fish, I honestly haven't heard of it before

 

[LaloJ]

Out of curiosity, if this fish was seen as ‘mythical’ and only pictured (and likely seen) twice in the past - now 3 times - how has it been given a scientific name already?
Most other species took scientific research into their DNA before gaining a scientific name so surely they would have to gain that information before being able to confirm this fish isn’t simply a genetic mutation or hybrid of another species. Unless ‘Apolemichthys guezei’ isn’t a true confirmed scientific name? As another way new species gain a true name, they have a holotype and generally a few other specimens that show differentiation within a species (Isotypes and Paratypes). And they can’t really Identify a fish through two, or likely when it was ‘named’ one single photo. They can probably guess it’s a new species but without the genetic information we may find this is simply just a hybrid found between other angels in this area. Possibly a Gold Flake (there have been reports of this species in the Indian Ocean) and Xanthurus Cream (an Indian Ocean ‘endemic’).

The hybrid theory was put forward because the specimen in question had not been sighted in many years, so possibly it had been a coincidence, however, and this is just my opinion, I think it goes without saying that Randall is a professional and has more than an trained eye,and was able to place the fish as an individual species from the beginning, the hybrid theory is very good but I believe that hybrids can normally take certain physical characteristics from the parents that are not necessarily the same in all specimens, and in the few photographs of Apolemichthys guezei I find that the fish has a blue edging on its posterior dorsal fin, anal fins and in the tail too, so I suppose a pattern like that would be a characteristic of a particular species, again IMO. Angelfishes such as Centropyge nigriocella and Centropyge hotumatua also join this list of rare fish, with little photographic evidence, especially in nature.

 

[i cant think]

The hybrid theory was put forward because the specimen in question had not been sighted in many years, so possibly it had been a coincidence, however, and this is just my opinion, I think it goes without saying that Randall is a professional and has more than an trained eye,and was able to place the fish as an individual species from the beginning, the hybrid theory is very good but I believe that hybrids can normally take certain physical characteristics from the parents that are not necessarily the same in all specimens, and in the few photographs of Apolemichthys guezei I find that the fish has a blue edging on its posterior dorsal fin, anal fins and in the tail too, so I suppose a pattern like that would be a characteristic of a particular species, again IMO. Angelfishes such as Centropyge nigriocella and Centropyge hotumatua also join this list of rare fish, with little photographic evidence, especially in nature.

But then if you look at the yellow patching, it varies on each specimen although this could be to do with maturing. The blue ring could be a dominant trait seen in all hybrids of the parent species (if this is a hybrid fish), similar to how the Tigerpyge always has the yellow/orange striping yet it can still vary every time. Infact, every Tigerpyge has the blue highlighting as well so it’s not unlikely that the blue outline is a dominant trait.

 

[Unique Fins]

But then if you look at the yellow patching, it varies on each specimen although this could be to do with maturing. The blue ring could be a dominant trait seen in all hybrids of the parent species (if this is a hybrid fish), similar to how the Tigerpyge always has the yellow/orange striping yet it can still vary every time. Infact, every Tigerpyge has the blue highlighting as well so it’s not unlikely that the blue outline is a dominant trait.

Could be, tigerpyge is an interesting point. Hopefully one day another is collected do we can get the true answer. I personally think it's just a color with maturing. Off topic, I have a really rare deepwater wrasse coming in thats never been collected for the trade, I know you like wrasses so I'll keep you updated!