Soapfish?

[TheRedHead]

Size: About 6-8 inches
Location: Bonaire
Found: Near hard coral 60 to 80 ft. late afternoon

I saw several Greater Soapfish in Bonaire in shallower water and mostly on the sand. This guy was deeper on the reef and is shaped like a soapfish, but his tail is not rounded.

I'm attaching a photo.

 

[archman]

I *think* what you have there is a spanish hogfish, Bodianus rufus. The blue and yellow blotched bodies are distinctive in more mature specimens.

 

[riguerin]

I *think* what you have there is a spanish hogfish, Bodianus rufus. The blue and yellow blotched bodies are distinctive in more mature specimens.

Possible ... hard to tell from that pic. Doesn't the tail and belly usually tend to be yellow on a spanish hogfish ?

 

[Rick Murchison]

Definitely a Spanish Hogfish. The mouth is distinctive enough to nail the ID even from that angle.
Rick

 

[herman]

The color on a hogfish varies a lot. From what I can see in the picture, it looks like a spanish hogfish to me as well. Here is one I shot in Roatan a few weeks ago.

 

[TheRedHead]

Thanks everyone. You're right. I checked my photos of Bonaire Spanish Hogfish and they have the same dark gray/blue color. This one was almost all blue except for a couple of spots of yellow. The soapfish was also dark blue. We saw lots of subtle color variations in Bonaire's fish population.

 

[archman]

As they get older, the color patterning variation in this species gets pretty high. Sometimes you hardly see more than 20% yellow on specimens.