''Cantherhines dumerilii'' is a species of

fish A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can ...

in the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Monacanthidae, the filefishes. Its common names include whitespotted filefish, barred filefish, orange-fin file, and yelloweye leatherjacket.Froese, R. and D. Pauly, Eds
Common names of ''Cantherhines dumerilii''.
FishBase. 2013. It is distributed in the

Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Associated with India * of or related to India ** Indian people ** Indian diaspora ** Languages of India ** Indian English, a dialect of the English language ** Indian cuisine Associated with indigenous peoples o ...

and

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

s where it is found on coral reefs.

Description

This fish can reach in length but is more usually around . The dorsal fin has two spines and thirty-four to thirty-nine soft rays. The anal fin has no spines and twenty-eight to thirty-five soft rays. This fish has yellow eyes and its general color is grayish or yellowish-brown with about twelve vertical dark bars. The fleshy lips are white. The tail fin is small, rounded and orange and the other fins are yellowish. The spines on the caudal peduncle are orange, with the male having longer and deeper orange caudal spines and a darker orange caudal fin and darker eyes.

Etymology

The fish is named in honor of August Duméril (1812-1870), a herpetologist and ichthyologist, at the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (Paris), who made the type specimen available to Hollard.

Distribution and habitat

''Cantherhines dumerilii'' is native to the Indo-Pacific region. Its range extends from the East African coast to French Polynesia, Japan and Hawaii. It is also present in the eastern Pacific Ocean off the coasts of Mexico and Colombia. It is a common resident of coral reefs and likes to have rock crevices and caves to retreat into if disturbed. Juveniles are

pelagic The pelagic zone consists of the water column of the open ocean and can be further divided into regions by depth. The word ''pelagic'' is derived . The pelagic zone can be thought of as an imaginary cylinder or water column between the sur ...

and sometimes hide under floating objects.

Behavior

The fish lives around

reef A reef is a ridge or shoal of rock, coral, or similar relatively stable material lying beneath the surface of a natural body of water. Many reefs result from natural, abiotic component, abiotic (non-living) processes such as deposition (geol ...

s down to depths of , but usually staying in shallower waters and sometimes nearing the surface. It is a shy fish, hiding if danger threatens. It is usually seen singly or in pairs and feeds on the tips of branching

coral Corals are colonial marine invertebrates within the subphylum Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact Colony (biology), colonies of many identical individual polyp (zoology), polyps. Coral species include the important Coral ...

algae Algae ( , ; : alga ) is an informal term for any organisms of a large and diverse group of photosynthesis, photosynthetic organisms that are not plants, and includes species from multiple distinct clades. Such organisms range from unicellular ...

sponge Sponges or sea sponges are primarily marine invertebrates of the animal phylum Porifera (; meaning 'pore bearer'), a basal clade and a sister taxon of the diploblasts. They are sessile filter feeders that are bound to the seabed, and a ...

sea urchin Sea urchins or urchins () are echinoderms in the class (biology), class Echinoidea. About 950 species live on the seabed, inhabiting all oceans and depth zones from the intertidal zone to deep seas of . They typically have a globular body cove ...

s, and

molluscs Mollusca is a phylum of protostome, protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant taxon, extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum ...

References

*Myers, R.F., 1991. Micronesian reef fishes. Second Ed. Coral Graphics, Barrigada, Guam. 298 p.

External links

* {{Species_named_after_A.M.C._Duméril Monacanthidae Fish described in 1854