I know he's not either of those. When I first got him I actually thought he may be the hartzfeldii and that he would transition to the adult color morph. However, its been two years and he hasn't shown any signs of changing color and has not grown anymore the past year so I was thinking not so much anymore lol
Darn. There’s me only going through the 82 species of halichoeresFirst I’ll start with the thoughts that have already occurred on here.
I disagree with Cyanocephalus and Hartzfeldii, if we’re assuming this is a mature male at 4 inches then the colours on these two are completely different as mature males.
Now, Zeylonicus as an adult is a gorgeous green/orange colour pattern. Your specimen is a white with a brown stripe before the dorsal. Again, Pelicieri is a close match as juvenile but the bar is lower down than your specimen shows. As for an adult Pelicieri they’re more greens and black. Bleekeri as a mature male is orange and green/blue.
To find a definite ID the best thing is to look through each genus that has species with similar features. So for this you want to look into the Coris genus as well as Halichoeres.
The main ones that come up are;
Coris venusta
Coris dorsomacula
Coris caudimacula
My vote goes to a transitioning male Coris dorsomacula. After looking into the photos closely I can see not only the dorsal stripe bars but also two deep lines on the body which look very similar to this guy. You can also see all 3 fins (Dorsal, Caudal and Anal) starting to gain more colour and look close to the male on the photo below - not my photo.
I will admit this stumped me for a while because I wasn’t looking outside the box and was trying to find Halichoeres species that match this guy.
I know right, I was looking for one that was identical and nearly gave up and then accidentally found myself looking into Coris species (I will admit that Coris formosa was the other thing that got me into looking at Coris species).Darn. There’s me only going through the 82 species of halichoeres
It is definitely Coris dorsomacula, he looks exactly like that photo. All of the striping and black dots match up to where they are on my wrasse. He will sometimes pick a fight with my female maroon around breeding time and his colors deepen to that exact photo.First I’ll start with the thoughts that have already occurred on here.
I disagree with Cyanocephalus and Hartzfeldii, if we’re assuming this is a mature male at 4 inches then the colours on these two are completely different as mature males.
Now, Zeylonicus as an adult is a gorgeous green/orange colour pattern. Your specimen is a white with a brown stripe before the dorsal. Again, Pelicieri is a close match as juvenile but the bar is lower down than your specimen shows. As for an adult Pelicieri they’re more greens and black. Bleekeri as a mature male is orange and green/blue.
To find a definite ID the best thing is to look through each genus that has species with similar features. So for this you want to look into the Coris genus as well as Halichoeres.
The main ones that come up are;
Coris venusta
Coris dorsomacula
Coris caudimacula
My vote goes to a transitioning male Coris dorsomacula. After looking into the photos closely I can see not only the dorsal stripe bars but also two deep lines on the body which look very similar to this guy. You can also see all 3 fins (Dorsal, Caudal and Anal) starting to gain more colour and look close to the male on the photo below - not my photo.
I will admit this stumped me for a while because I wasn’t looking outside the box and was trying to find Halichoeres species that match this guy.
He’s a stunning male, one of my dream Coris wrasses just before the Coris venusta.
The LFS that I got him from actually had no clue what he was and sold him to me for $20. He’s a ton of fun to watch, however, he can be kind of a menace. Most ornamental inverts are unfortunately on the menu and he likes to rip apart starfish but does not eat them.
unfortunately that’s the usual behaviour for Coris species of any kind and even most Halichoeres species will do this.
