Standing Out From the Crowd (IMAGE)

ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies

Standing Out From the Crowd

Caption

Two closely related species living together need different colors to stand out. The Reticulated Butterflyfish (Chaetodon reticulatus; left) and Meyer's Butterflyfish (Chaetodon meyeri; right) are close relatives that have overlapping ranges in the Indo-Pacific and are both found on the Great Barrier Reef. Despite only being separate species for less than a million years (a blink of an eye in evolutionary time), they have evolved very different color patterns making them stand apart from each other on reefs where they are both found.

Credit

Tane Sinclair-Taylor

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