Mirror butterflyfish

Mirror butterflyfish
Mirror Butterflyfish
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Perciformes
Family: Chaetodontidae
Genus: Chaetodon (but see text)
Subgenus: Tetrachaetodon
Species: C. (T.) speculum
Binomial name
Chaetodon (Tetrachaetodon) speculum
Cuvier, 1831

The Mirror Butterflyfish, Chaetodon speculum, is a species of butterflyfish (family Chaetodontidae). It is found in the Indian and Pacific Oceans from Indonesia to Japan and south to the Great Barrier Reef and Papua New Guinea. The species has also been reported from Madagascar, Mauritius and Réunion.[1]

It grows to a maximum of 18 cm (7 in) in length. The body color is a bright to orange-yellow with a big black blotch below the dorsal fin and a vertical black bar running through the eye.[1]

Like the other butterflyfishes with angular yellow bodies with black eyestripes and a single differently-colored patch (except in the quite basal Blue-lashed Butterflyfish, C. bennetti), it belongs in the subgenus Tetrachaetodon. Among this group it seems to be particularly close to the Zanzibar Butterflyfish (C. zanzibarensis) which has a smaller black blotch and traces of horizontal stripes on the flanks. If Chaetodon is split up, the subgenus Tetrachaetodon would be placed in Megaprotodon.[2]

The Mirror Butterflyfish is found in coral reefs at depths between 3 and 30 m. It favors coastal reef slopes rich in hydroids and sea anemones. Small juveniles hide in coral thickets. Usually, this species is solitary and relatively uncommon. They feed on coral polyps and invertebrates.[1]

Footnotes

  1. ^ a b c 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 speculum. Version of 2008-JUK-24. 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
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