White Sailfish

[Craig Thailand]

I'm sure some of you have seen this before but I just had to post it, what a beautiful fish. Apparently it is not and albino as the Dr. explains
"This is a very unusual and magnificent sailfish, but it is not a real 'albino' form. Note the dark splotches on the head and dorsal fin, as well as the eye. This fish is "hypo melanistic," meaning it has an extraordinary lack of melanin, the coloring pigment. In a true albino there would be no dark coloring on any of the body and the eye would be pink from a lack of any coloring in the cornea, pupil and lens."

Seems a shame to catch it really, beeing so rare and all:waterwork

Just wondering if anyone sees these hypo melanistic forms of fish around??

 

[deep thinker]

Ive seen it in wild buck in SA but never in a fish, dont you think that mite put the fish to a extreme disadvantage in the ocean being so different it should stand out like a sore eye. Maybe shadowkiller can shed some more light on this

 

[Craig Thailand]

I watched a program on discovery about this before, and you right. They are at a much greater disadvantage than others of the same species. It is quite common in monkeys but apparently there own kind attack them for being different, sounds like a british public high school!

 

[deep thinker]

rofl rofl Theres a story running around of like 20 years back or so, A farmer caught a baboon while the herd was stealing maze, so he painted it white and let it go back to its group, they started running and he gave chase. He never had a problem with that pack of baboons again. Not very spoting but rather funny if you think about the fright the rest of the pack got

 

[Craig Thailand]

rofl rofl If you did that it Thailand you could sell it for a mil. Albino animals are very expensive here, most are given to the king as gifts!!
Even the white women here are looked upon in a different light, the whiter the better is what the Thai people say. I dread to think of the amount of attention a young albino Thai girl would get here, definetly no catch and release thats for sure.rofl rofl

 

[greendiver]

Nice fish!!

 

[island_sands]

I'm sure some of you have seen this before but I just had to post it, what a beautiful fish. Apparently it is not and albino as the Dr. explains
"This is a very unusual and magnificent sailfish, but it is not a real 'albino' form. Note the dark splotches on the head and dorsal fin, as well as the eye. This fish is "hypo melanistic," meaning it has an extraordinary lack of melanin, the coloring pigment. In a true albino there would be no dark coloring on any of the body and the eye would be pink from a lack of any coloring in the cornea, pupil and lens."

Seems a shame to catch it really, beeing so rare and all:waterwork

Just wondering if anyone sees these hypo melanistic forms of fish around??

hey almost
http://www.southfishing.com/images/photos/Ven1.gif
been fishing around the net..

 

[ROBERT REYES]

An hypo melanistic fish must be very rare, probably because it will be seen
very easy by all other fish, and it would not even get to be a juvenile fish.
I saw some nice pics of a white croc in Australia, but never seen any on the wild, exept for a white dolphin mamal, it was with a pack of dolphins, and
most of them had some kind of white spot, so I wonder if it was kind of a disease or some like that.
But what I do see a lot, in tuna, wahoo , mahi, is a lot of injuries, most of them have already being healed and the fish still growing and feeding .

 

[chris the vis]

Hi
I visited the Rhodes icthyology department yesterday in Grahamstown and got a little tour of their fish collection. Apart from their world renowned coelocanths and many other beautiful fish from the western indian ocean they had what they claimed to be an albino great white, approx. 1.5m and 6months old. Unfortunately the alcohol/formalin the fish are preserved in leave the fish colourless after a while anyway so I could'nt really appreciate the full effect as a pigmented great white would probably have looked the same after a couple of years in an alcohol bath. It was still interesting to see though, just wish I had a camera with me. So yeah that's it a very white great white!

 

[deep thinker]

Maybe someone gave him a fright

 

[chris the vis]

Aha! Found something on moby jaws...

http://sacoast.uwc.ac.za/education/resources/envirofacts/greatwhite.htm

An Albino Great White

On 25 March 1996, an albino great white wad caught by Mr. Gerhard Els off Boknes, Eastern Cape, in 50 m of water. Mr. Els hooked the shark on a pilchard and squid-baited rig .It was donated to the JLB Smith Institute of Ichthyology (now known as the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity) and, after some research, was determined to be the first albino of the species known to science. This individual, a juvenile female less than a year old and measuring 145 cm to the fork of the tail, was solid white with reddish eyes, as are albinos of other animals. Much media attention was given to the specimen and it formed part of the public display at the Institute. Notice to the scientific community of this extremely rare discovery was made by Drs Malcolm Smale and Phil Heemstra, who gave a detailed physical description of the specimen with an emphasis on the conditions of its ayes.

 

[Fondueset]

Spotted this one last spring - wasn't able to get much closer unfortunately. Interestingly the iris, which is normally red/orange in Rock Bass, is the same color as the rest of the fish - sort of a faintly pinkish white.

 

[island_sands]

this stingray is white... normally though.
thought i'd post it anyway

 

[sanadw]

man this fish is outstanding!!!

 

[Polystigma]

I saw a lobster that I thought was albino a few weeks ago. However, he did have a few orange blotches on him. So it must have been hypo melanistic.

Cool looking fish though. Wonder how it tasted.

 

[Craig Thailand]

That sting ray looks cool, is it a marble ray?
Shame the pics of the GWS are in black and white i would love to see what it looks like for real, i wonder how it died, starvation perhaps? I guess that a shark that stands out as much as that would find it hard to ambush its prey.