Mandarin Fish on Coral

Made at the house reef at Tawali Resort, in PNG’s Milne Bay Province.

These beautiful fish are small, play in coral, and are generally found at dusk and dawn, and only if you know where to look.

Sometimes thought to be uncommon, the fact that we’ve seen them at the house reef at Tawali, and Tufi Wharf (the house reef at Tufi in PNG’s Oro Province) suggests to me that they may be more common, just hard to find!

Very cute, but hard to photograph, as they play around inside coral or other small areas.

This was shot with a 60mm macro lens on a Nikon D100 back in 2006.