Pictured above is a male Banggai Cardinalfish brooding a mouthful of baby Banggais. The photos aren’t all that great, but you can see that his mouth seems pretty full. In fact, when he opens his mouth slightly, the heads of a good number of baby Banggais can be seen. Some of the babies have already been released. I expect that the main release will happen tonight.

The babies that are already free from daddy’s sheltering mouth are hanging out among the spines of a long-spined black sea urchin. Banggais, especially when young, like to seek refuge among the spines of urchins. I couldn’t get a decent picture of the babies hovering around the urchin, so I’ll provide a couple of substitute pictures. The first is a picture of my urchin, sans Banggai babies. The second is a picture that someone took of Banggais flocking around an artificial urchin. The artificial urchin gives a good impression of what the real spectacle looks like.

The fry in the second picture were released from their father’s mouth one day before. They look exactly like the little guys swimming around in my tank. Cute, aren’t they?