''Pomacentrus amboinensis'' is a

damselfish Damselfish are those within the subfamilies Abudefdufinae, Chrominae, Lepidozyginae, Pomacentrinae, and Stegastenae within the family Pomacentridae. Most species within this group are relatively small, with the largest species being about 30 ...

from the Western

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

. It occasionally makes its way into the aquarium trade. It grows to a size of 9 cm in length. They live in small groups of one mature male that guards a nest site on the seafloor and several females. Once settled, females rarely migrate. New juveniles can usually join groups easily. As they reach sexual maturity, they usually lose their "eyespot" on their dorsal fin. ''P. amboinensis'' is a

protogynous Sequential hermaphroditism (called dichogamy in botany) is a type of hermaphroditism In reproductive biology, a hermaphrodite () is an organism that has both kinds of reproductive organs and can produce both gametes associated with male and ...

species - all individuals start out as females and later can turn into males. However some males retain the appearance of juveniles, probably to sneak into the harems of dominant males. This species has been shown to have

colour vision Color vision, a feature of visual perception, is an ability to perceive differences between light composed of different wavelengths (i.e., different spectral power distributions) independently of light intensity. Color perception is a part of t ...

using behavioral experiments that control for brightness, apparently being the first known example of colour discrimination in reef fish.Siebeck, U. E., Wallis, G. M., & Litherland, L. (2008). Colour vision in coral reef fish. Journal of Experimental Biology, 211(3), 354-360. doi: 10.1242/jeb.012880

References

External links

* amboinensis Fish described in 1868 {{Pomacentridae-stub