Latticed butterflyfish

Latticed Butterflyfish
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Perciformes
Family: Chaetodontidae
Genus: Chaetodon (but see text)
Subgenus: Rabdophorus
Species: C. rafflesii
Binomial name
Chaetodon rafflesii
Anonymous E. T. Bennett, 1830

The Latticed Butterflyfish (Chaetodon rafflesii) is a species of butterflyfish (family Chaetodontidae). It is found in the Indo-Pacific region from Sri Lanka to the Tuamotu Islands, north to southern Japan, south to the Great Barrier Reef, and from Palau (Belau) to the eastern Caroline Islands in Micronesia.[2]

It grows to a maximum of 18 cm (7.1 in) long,[3] but the most common length is 15 cm (5.9 in). The body color is yellow with a cross-hatched pattern of darker lines on the sides; it has a vertical black eyestripe and a vertical black line in the caudal fin. The peculiarly-patterned C. rafflesii belongs to the large subgenus Rabdophorus which might warrant recognition as a distinct genus. In this group, it seems to represent a rather unusual lineage, with perhaps just the White-faced Butterflyfish (C. mesoleucos) being less distantly related.[2][4][5]

The Latticed Butterflyfish is an uncommon species found in areas of rich coral growth of lagoons and protected reef flats and seaward reefs from 1–20 m depth. It feeds on sea anemones, polychaetes, and octocorallian and scleractinian coral polyps.[2]

References

  1. ↑ Myers, R. & Pratchett, M. 2010. Chaetodon rafflesii. In: IUCN 2013. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2013.1. <www.iucnredlist.org>. Downloaded on 10 September 2013.
  2. 1 2 3 FishBase (2008): Chaetodon rafflesii. Version of 2008-JUL-24. Retrieved 2008-SEP-01.
  3. ↑ Dianne J. Bray, 2011, Lattice Butterflyfish, Chaetodon rafflesii, in Fishes of Australia, accessed 07 Oct 2014, http://www.fishesofaustralia.net.au/home/species/2396
  4. ↑ Fessler, Jennifer L. & Westneat, Mark W. (2007): Molecular phylogenetics of the butterflyfishes (Chaetodontidae): Taxonomy and biogeography of a global coral reef fish family. Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 45(1): 50–68. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2007.05.018 (HTML abstract)
  5. ↑ Hsu, Kui-Ching; Chen, Jeng-Ping & Shao, Kwang-Tsao (2007): Molecular phylogeny of Chaetodon (Teleostei: Chaetodontidae) in the Indo-West Pacific: evolution in geminate species pairs and species groups. Raffles Bulletin of Zoology Supplement 14: 77-86. PDF fulltext
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