‹ Fish Finder· #357
Pearl-scaled Angelfish
Centropyge vrolikii
Bislamapapiong— names this kind of animal, not this species alone
- Habitat
- Reef
- Max size
- 12 cm
- Depth
- 1-25 m
- Family
- Pomacanthidae
Centropyge vrolikii, known commonly as the pearlscale angelfish or half black angelfish, is a species of marine ray-finned fish, a marine angelfish belonging to the family Pomacanthidae. It is found in the Indo-Pacific.
Adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Easily confused with
Side by side, with what tells them apart.
Only the young Chocolate Surgeonfish mimics the Pearl-scaled Angelfish, pale in front and dark behind; it grows out of it into a chocolate-brown adult with an orange patch at the gill and a yellow tail margin. A mimic gives itself away with the surgeonfish's lance-shaped tail and its small grazing mouth; the angelfish has a rounded tail and a strong spine at the corner of the gill cover.
See the Chocolate Surgeonfish →
Small juvenile Redmouth Groupers copy the Pearl-scaled Angelfish until they outgrow it. The angelfish is pale tan in front and blackish on the rear third, with an orange edge to the gill opening and the pectoral base, and a spine at the corner of the gill cover. The young grouper has a grouper's large mouth, a broad white margin on the tail and a narrow one on the soft dorsal fin; adults are deep-bodied, dark brown to black, with a red-orange mouth.
See the Redmouth Grouper →