In a time where clownfish breeders are trying hard to tease out as many splotches and large white patches in their Ocellaris clownfish that they can, obviously in hopes to recreate the snowflake look, the crew at Marine Reef Solutions have gone a different route, at least with one of their batches. They recently showed off a video, albeit not of very good quality, of their Dotted Ocellaris, which have a large white dot in place of their second bar. The first stripe (on the head) and the second one (on the tail) both seem to be in tact and rather normal looking. That middle one, on the other hand, has been completely morphed into a very well rounded dot. Not an odd shaped splotch, but an actual dot.
Where most of the variations occur are the position and size of the dot. The dots vary wildly in size, with some of them being a tiny spec of white on an orange background, with others being fairly significant in size. As far as location, the dots are located around the middle of the fish’s bodies, but vary in their vertical position. Some fish still have remnants of their middle stripe, but it mostly shows up as a small white streak on the ventral side of the fish, in between the pelvic and anal fins.
Admittedly, the Dotted Ocellaris sort of look like the intermediate clownfish that ORA was getting when they were moving toward their Naked Ocellaris. The difference being that the Dotted clowns have retained their first and last bars, replacing the middle bar with the dot. The naked clowns had far more variation, with all of the bars disappearing, though some still had random white spots and splotches where the bars used to be.
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