''Cepola haastii'' is a species of marine
ray-finned fish belonging to the
family Cepolidae
The bandfishes, family Cepolidae, are 23 species of marine ray-finned fishes, They are native to the East Atlantic and Indo-Pacific wherethey dig burrows in sandy or muddy seabeds and eat zooplankton.
Taxonomy
The bandfishes belong to the famil ...
, the bandfishes. It is found on the inner
continental shelf
A continental shelf is a portion of a continent that is submerged under an area of relatively shallow water, known as a shelf sea. Much of these shelves were exposed by drops in sea level during glacial periods. The shelf surrounding an island ...
around
New Zealand. Its length is between 15 and 25 cm. This species is known as the red bandfish, a name given to most of the other members of the genus ''
Cepola
''Cepola'' is a genus of marine ray-finned fishes belonging to the bandfish family, Cepolidae. The name red bandfish is applied to all members of this genus, but particularly ''C. macrophthalma'', and generally not ''C. australis'', which is al ...
'', especially the European species, ''
Cepola macrophthalma''.
Taxonomy
''Cepola haastii'' was first formally
described as ''Hypolycodes haastii'' in 1881 by the
Scottish
Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including:
*Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland
*Scottish English
*Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...
born New Zealand
geologist,
naturalist and
surgeon
In modern medicine, a surgeon is a medical professional who performs surgery. Although there are different traditions in different times and places, a modern surgeon usually is also a licensed physician or received the same medical training as ...
James Hector with the
type locality
Type locality may refer to:
* Type locality (biology)
* Type locality (geology)
See also
* Local (disambiguation)
* Locality (disambiguation)
{{disambiguation ...
given as
Waimarama on the east coast of the
North Island
The North Island, also officially named Te Ika-a-Māui, is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the larger but much less populous South Island by the Cook Strait. The island's area is , making it the world's 14th-largest ...
near
Wellington, New Zealand.
The
specific name Specific name may refer to:
* in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database
In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules:
* Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...
honours the German-born geologist
Johann Franz Julius von Haast, the first director of the
Canterbury Museum in
Christchurch, New Zealand, who tasked Hector to describe this species.
Description
''Cepola haastii'' is an elongated fish with the rearmost soft rays of both the elongated
dorsal and
anal fin
Fins are distinctive anatomical features composed of bony spines or rays protruding from the body of a fish. They are covered with skin and joined together either in a webbed fashion, as seen in most bony fish, or similar to a flipper, as se ...
s connected to its lanceolate
caudal fin by a membrane to form a continuous fin.
This species attains a maximum
total length of . The upper part of the head, the eye, much of the body and the fins are reddish-orange marked with a number of pale silvery bars and blotches on the body and a pale horizontal streak along the middle of the flanks. The
preoperculum
This glossary of ichthyology is a list of definitions of terms and concepts used in ichthyology, the study of fishes.
A
B
C
...
and
operculum, as well as the abdomen are silvery.
Distribution and habitat
''Cepola haastii'' is
endemic to New Zealand and may be restricted to the northern part of that country. They live in burrows in soft sediments at depth of less than .
[
]
Biology
''Cepola haastii'' live in burrows and emerge from these burrows to feed on zooplankton like other bandfishes.
References
*
*
* Tony Ayling & Geoffrey Cox, ''Collins Guide to the Sea Fishes of New Zealand'', (William Collins Publishers Ltd, Auckland, New Zealand 1982)
{{Taxonbar, from=Q2213368
haastii
Endemic marine fish of New Zealand
Fish described in 1881
Taxa named by James Hector