Common Name: Australian Melanopus Anemonefish
Scientific Name: Amphiprion verweyi Whitley 1933
Distribution: Queensland and islands of the Coral Sea (Osprey Reef, Holmes Reef, Marion Island). An Isolated population exists at North Solitary Island, New South Wales.
Type Locality: North-west Islet, Capricorn Group, Queensland
Identification: Single stripe. Ventral fins black, though anal fin often with posterior portions orange. Both sexes with black well-developed along the back and sides. Usually quite brightly colored.
Similar: Essentially identical to the true A. melanopus of Indonesia, A. cf melanopus from Micronesia, and A. monofasciatus from Papua New Guinea & the Solomon Islands, but tends to be a bit brighter in its base color and often with a distinctive curvilinear pattern created by the posterior margin of the black sides, stretching from beneath the dorsal fin, through the caudal peduncle and into the anal fin. The Vanuautu and New Caledonian A. arion has relatively little black along the body, as well as having sexually dichromatic pelvic fins and an orange anal fin.
Notes: The diagnostic curvilinear pattern described above is only found in a portion of this population, but it is prevalent enough and distinct enough to provide strong evidence that this fish differs from others in the melanopus group.
Taxonomy Note: This species was treated as a synonym of Amphiprion melanopus in Allen 1991 and subsequent references. The elevation to full species status used in this classification should be considered provisional until a full taxonomic revision is published.
Amphiprionology 