James A. Wong

Thalassoma purpureum is one of those fishes I never get tired of seeing, it's like seeing Tom Hardy at Kmart or something and I get excited every time. Unreal animal!!

Only just getting around to posting this now cause I'm still a bit fried socially - super happy to have presented some of my research on subtropical reef fishes at the @AustSocFishBiol conference in newy!! Made new friends, caught up with old ones and learned a lot!!

Like, it's just so cool that someone describing these animals saw so much grace and beauty in them they could only compare them to legends. This is Alope orientalis - Alope was a mortal woman of great beauty, coveted by the gods. Doesn't get more poetic than that @Uni_Newcastle

This is Hippolyte australiensis - there's a few crustacean taxa named for mythical figures. Hippolyte in Greek mythos Ares' daughter and queen of the Amazons! Isn't it nice to live in a world where little shrimp can be spoken about in the same way as a demigod? :) @Uni_Newcastle

お魚たちVer.1

@EmuLarge Everything I have learned about these people has been against my will

I’m still processing that the kid in the blue shirt isn’t actually related to the other two guys. It’s like old school circus promoters that would go to other countries and abduct children from other cultures to put on display in the west for pennies and nickels

Lookit that Ptereleotris!

I love Blenniids so much Not a single thought going on in there

Got a tattoo of one of my favorite marine symbioses!!! Man o War fish live in the stinging tentacles of siphonophores in the same way clownfishes host in anemones. I think they're admirable for being a small fish out in the open ocean but figuring out how to survive anyway!

Gymnothorax meleagris is my second favourite eel right behind Enchelycore!! I'm a sucker for stripes and spots

@jethroreading32 GIMME

I would trade a child for this

Flying fish may be some of the best fish I've ever eaten. Locals let me know it was a must try, got up at 0530 to beat the queue. Served up with chilli, lime, coconut milk, rice and arrowroot! Knock yer socks off!!

It's not the heat that gets ya champ, it's the humidity 🌞 Keen to be in this neck of the woods to do some fieldwork on reef fishes!!!

That's meeeeeee

Rhinecanthus lunula!!!! What a fish!!!

Tetractenos glaber? Hardly know 'er 😎

@hellbendermodel Next one is a man o war and Nomeus gronovii on the other side!! Symbiosis shoulders!

@JimStudiesFish Ooh hell yes

...Latest tattoo escapade 🐠

@sawsharkman I felt this in my bones

Everyone who has done SIA sample weighing, you know this feeling.

Love #damselfish? Curious how coral reef loss impacts their inhibitory control? Catch my talk at #ISBE2024 🐠 Session: Learning and Cognition, Eureka Room 3, 11:45 am. Thanks to @TheFSBI for the travel grant 💙