Cirrhilabrus squirei, an Undescribed Rare Wrasse from the Coral Sea Shows Up at Blue Harbor


Cirrhilabrus squirei Blue Harbor

Blue Harbor, the prestigious Japan-based importer of extremely rare aquarium fish, continues to raise the bar with the amazing livestock they are constanly bringing in. Typically, they get hold of rare deepwater species that would make any marine aquarium hobbyist fervently drool all over themselves, and their latest rare wrasse find isn’t any different in that respect. What makes their new Coral Sea wrasse, Cirrhilabrus squirei, so unique to Blue Harbor is that it hasn’t even been described by the scientific community yet. The fish is that rare!

Continue below for a video and a little more information on this amazing fish.

According to Koji Wada, although the C. squirei has not been officially described, renowned ichthyologist John E. Randall has agreed to call it Cirrhilabrus squirei. This name was derived from Lyle Squire of Cairns Marine, who we believe either caught the fish or facilitated its capture in some way, though we haven’t been able to confirm that.

As one could imagine, there’s very little information circulating about this incredibly rare wrasse. What we do know is that C. squirei was caught in the Coral Sea, which is the area just off Australia’s western coast that extends to Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, and the southern most point of Papua New Guinea. Other than that, it’s still a mystery until more information surfaces.

To round out this article, we’ve also found this video from Blue Harbor. It shows the C. squirei wrasse chomping at the bit to get into that SPS laden reef aquarium, and by all outward appearances it looks completely healthy, which is always a good sign. We’ll continue to follow this rare fish and update if any new information surfaces.


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