Threadfin butterflyfish

Threadfin butterflyfish
Threadfin Butterflyfish
Adults at Kona (Hawaiʻi)
Conservation status
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Perciformes
Family: Chaetodontidae
Genus: Chaetodon (but see text)
Subgenus: Rabdophorus
Species: C. (R.) auriga
Binomial name
Chaetodon (Rabdophorus) auriga
Forsskål, 1775

The Threadfin Butterflyfish, Chaetodon auriga, is a species of butterflyfish (family Chaetodontidae). It is found in the Indo-Pacific region from the Red Sea and eastern Africa (south to Mossel Bay, South Africa) to the Hawaiian, Marquesan, and Ducie islands, north to southern Japan, south to Lord Howe Island and Rapa Iti, at depths of between 1 and 35 m.[1]

Adult at Sharm el Sheik, Red Sea.
Note lack of dorsal eyespot.

Length is up to 23 cm (9 in). Chaetodon auriga has a neck patch of ascending and a belly patch of descending oblique dark lines. As the name Chaetodon auriga originally refers to the Red Sea population, the spotted population is sometimes separated as subspecies Chaetodon auriga setifer.[1]

It belongs to the large subgenus Rabdophorus which might warrant recognition as a distinct genus. In this group, it almost certainly is a rather close relative of the Vagabond Butterflyfish (C. vagabundus) and the Indian Vagabond Butterflyfish (C. decussatus). The Threadfin Butterflyfish might be closer to the latter; as C. vagabundus has yielded abnormal DNA sequence data this is hard to say however. The C. auriga species group shares the characteristic pattern of two areas of ascending and descending oblique lines; species differ conspicuously in hindpart coloration.[2]

Footnotes

  1. ^ a b FishBase [2008]
  2. ^ Fessler & Westneat (2007), Hsu et al. (2007)

References

  • 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)
  • FishBase [2008]: Chaetodon auriga. Retrieved 2008-SEP-01.
  • 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