''Cantherhines pardalis'' 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. Common names include honeycomb filefish, honeycomb leatherjacket, and wire-netting filefish.Froese, R. and D. Pauly, Eds
Common names of ''Cantherhines pardalis''.
FishBase. 2013. It is native to the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...

, the eastern

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for se ...

, and the western

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five 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 bounded by the cont ...

, except for the seas around

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

, where it is replaced by '' Cantherhines sandwichiensis''.

Description

This fish can reach in length, but its common length is around . The dorsal fin is divided into two parts, the anterior one having two long, curved spines and the posterior one thirty-two to thirty-six soft rays. The first dorsal spine is located immediately above the middle of the eye and there is a deep groove in the fish's back into which the spine folds down. The anal fin has no spines and twenty-nine to thirty-two soft rays. This species has three basic color types: a uniform dark brown, a mottled grayish-brown, and gray background color with a network of fine

polygon In geometry, a polygon () is a plane figure made up of line segments connected to form a closed polygonal chain. The segments of a closed polygonal chain are called its '' edges'' or ''sides''. The points where two edges meet are the polygon ...

al markings. There is a prominent white spot at the base of the rear of the second dorsal fin and another at the base of the rear of the anal fins, a feature this species shares with the closely related ''C. pullus'', found on tropical Atlantic reefs, and ''C. sandwichiensis'' from Hawaii.

Distribution and habitat

This fish lives in

tropical The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the equator, where the sun may shine directly overhead. This contrasts with the temperate or polar regions of Earth, where the Sun can never be directly overhead. This is because of Earth's ax ...

marine waters 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. It generally occurs at depths of up to , sometimes venturing deeper. It is a shy and retiring fish, usually living solitarily and feeding on

benthic The benthic zone is the ecological region at the lowest level of a body of water such as an ocean, lake, or stream, including the sediment surface and some sub-surface layers. The name comes from the Ancient Greek word (), meaning "the depths". ...

organisms. Both juveniles and adults sometimes drift with plants and algae, including rafts of ''

Sargassum ''Sargassum'' is a genus of brown macroalgae ( seaweed) in the order Fucales of the Phaeophyceae class. Numerous species are distributed throughout the temperate and tropical oceans of the world, where they generally inhabit shallow water and ...

''.

References

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q1000274 Monacanthidae Fish described in 1837