clown fish- misbarring? What's that?

[Kendra]

Hi again all. I am not at the fish stage yet, but I went to my local fish store, and she had some adorable baby clowns. She said that they were "saddle clowns" and that one of her customers had bred them. I asked how big they got, and she said "Oh not real big, clown sized." Since clowns vary a bit in size, I looked them up when I got home- in the same ID book I saw sitting next to the tank when I was in there. The little guys looked just like the blacker form of A. percula, and they had a white tail bar instead of the tail being rimmed with white like in my picture of the "saddleback clown" (A. polymnus).

However, where the white bar behind the dorsal fin goes all the way around the tummy of the fish in the book, on the little fish it was a saddle shape, or just a white spot on each side. In my reading, I came across a reference to clownfish being "misbarred."

Does anyone know anything about it? Could this be it? Should I watch out for it when the time comes? Is it malnutrition based or something? Thanks for any help-

Kendra

[Crakeur]

sounds like it might just be a genetic anomoly of sorts.