New Butterflyfish Species Discovered in Philippines: Roa rumsfeldi

A team of marine biologists from Monterey Bay Aquarium and the California Academy of Sciences has discovered and described a new species of the butterflyfish genus Roa from the Verde Island Passage in the Philippines, West Pacific Ocean.

Roa rumsfeldi. Image credit: Luiz Rocha, California Academy of Sciences.

“We named this reef fish Roa rumsfeldi because, as Donald Rumsfeld once said, some things are truly ‘unknown unknowns’,” said senior author Dr. Luiz Rocha, Associate Curator and Follett Chair of Ichthyology at the California Academy of Sciences.

“This fish caught us completely off-guard. After traveling from the deep reefs of the Philippines to our aquarium in San Francisco, former Academy aquarium biologist and co-author Dr. Matt Wandell noticed a black fin spine that looked different from other known Roa we’ve collected in the past. It was a light bulb moment for all of us.”

Butterflyfish, a group of tropical marine fish of the family Chaetodontidae, are iconic coral reef species.

Roa rumsfeldi and its close relatives are only known to live in mesophotic ‘twilight zone’ reefs, a place where sunlight is scarce and divers with traditional scuba gear cannot safely visit.

The new species was found on mesophotic reefs of Puerto Galera, Oriental Mindoro, and Bauan, Batangas, between 330 and 425 feet (100-130 m) depth.

However, it likely has a wider distribution and remains undetected because of its preferred depth range.

Roa rumsfeldi are usually seen in pairs, but the two specimens the team collected were solitary individuals.

“We have kept one of the specimens alive in the California Academy of Sciences’ Twilight Zone exhibit for more than one year, where it thrives and is feeding on a variety of dried and fresh food,” Dr. Rocha and colleagues said.

Roa rumsfeldi is described in a paper published in the October 18, 2017 issue of the journal ZooKeys.

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Luiz A. Rocha et al. 2017. Roa rumsfeldi, a new butterflyfish (Teleostei, Chaetodontidae) from mesophotic coral ecosystems of the Philippines. ZooKeys 709: 127-134; doi: 10.3897/zookeys.709.20404