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. (R.) rafflesii
Binomial name
Chaetodon (Rabdophorus) rafflesii 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.^[1]

It grows to a maximum of 18 cm (7.1 in) long. 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 unique lineage, with perhaps just the White-faced Butterflyfish (C. mesoleucos) being less distantly related.^[2]

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.^[1]

Footnotes

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

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 rafflesii. Version of 2008-JUL-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