Pity the Bulbnose Unicornfish. Almost all the rest of his cousins among the surgeonfish are shapely with brilliantly contrasting liveries of white, yellow, black, blue, orange, purple, green and scarlet. Ol' Bulbnose is the baggypants vaudeville comic of the tribe, dressed in gray or olive drab with black speckles and wearing a clown nose.
He does get a blue stripe on his long dorsal fin, because even the dullest surgeonfish is a little sporty.
Picking the handsomest would be difficult, but it might be the Powder Blue Surgeonfish, with its blue body, black face, white chin, white fins below and bright yellow fins on top, outlined with black, then more white.
The most familiar to snorkelers and divers in Hawaii and probably worldwide, is the all-yellow Yellow Tang, an aquarium favorite.
There could hardly be a better guide to the 80 species of surgeonfishes than John Randall, who did his doctoral dissertation on Hawaii's Convict Surgeonfish and pioneered in using scuba diving to study fish in the water.
s a result, he has scientifically described 19 new fish genera and more than 500 new species, said to be a record among living ichthyologists.
In "Surgeonfishes of Hawai`i and the World," he also describes his and his students' encounters with the venomous caudal barbs on some surgeonfish.
Surgeonfishes can be good eating and some get pretty big -- as much as a yard long. In Hawaiian, the are called kala or kole.
Randall's little book, one of the dozens he has written about fish, is more authoritative than most guides and the illustrations, almost all in color, are mostly superb, although a few of the skittish kinds have been hard to photograph.
Several species of surgeonfish were first described from individuals found in fish markets, and although Linnaeus included a few surgeonfish in his first classification of animals in the mid-18th century, new species of surgeonfish are still being discovered from time to time.