An adult male scuba diver interacts with a yellow and black butterflyfish underwater in a marine environment. 3:15
The Dodo channel icon The DodoOriginal creator 4.3M views Save

The butterflyfish who gives reef tours

A little butterflyfish swam straight at Rachel on a dive, and in her words, he was super friendly. In close to 2,000 dives, she had never had anything like it. more

Her first guess was that he wanted to be fed. It's very unusual, she says, for a wild animal to come up to you. Then he took the divers all over the reef. "It was like he was actually leading us," she says.

A scuba diver underwater near a coral reef holds gear while a small fish swims nearby. A headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
The little butterflyfish stays close and leads the way across the reef.

He took them down to see an eel. He took them over to see a sleeping turtle. For a small fish, he gives a very thorough tour.

Rachel figured it was a strange one-time thing. A couple of weeks later, the group went diving again, and there he was. Her husband said there was no way it was the same fish. But Sonny has a big yellow dot right in the center of his forehead, and he's a little bigger than the other butterflyfish.

Two years and more than 60 dives later, he still comes to say hello. Rachel waves to him, and she talks to him underwater, which she admits sounds crazy. As soon as he sees her wave, he gets excited and swims over.

An adult male scuba diver interacts with a yellow and black butterflyfish underwater in a marine environment. The headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
A little butterflyfish swam straight at Rachel on a dive, and in her words, he was super friendly.

He shakes so much when he sees them that he looks like an excited puppy. She does not feed him, and she doesn't chase him. "I think he just likes the interaction," she says.

One day she took some friends out, and Sonny was doing a weird little dance on the reef. She went down to see what he was up to, but she saw nothing. He stayed right next to her hand. Sure enough, there was a shell.

She held it out, and he came over to look. "Am I crazy," she wondered, "or is this fish actually learning what I like?" She has been diving for 16 years, and Sonny has forever changed the way she sees fish. She had no idea they could even recognize people.

She doesn't really believe in reincarnation, but she's starting to wonder if he's a long-lost best friend. Either way, she plans to cherish every moment she gets with him. She knows she may never have another Sonny.