The yellow triplefin (''Enneapterygius abeli''),> also known as the Abel's triplefin in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

, is a species of

triplefin Threefin or triplefin blennies are blenny, blenniiforms, small Percomorpha, percomorph marine fish of the family Tripterygiidae. Found in tropical and temperate waters of the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pacific and Indian Oceans, the ...

in the genus ''

Enneapterygius ''Enneapterygius'' is a genus of fish in the family Tripterygiidae found in the Indian and Pacific Ocean. Species There are currently 63 recognized species in this genus: * '' Enneapterygius abeli'' ( Klausewitz, 1960) (Yellow triplefin) * '' ...

''. Males in this species can reach a maximum length of 2.5 centimetres. The blennies are generally bright yellow in colour, and males have black heads. They feed mostly 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". ...

invertebrates Invertebrates are animals that neither develop nor retain a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''spine'' or ''backbone''), which evolved from the notochord. It is a paraphyletic grouping including all animals excluding the chordate subphylum ...

. In 1960,

Wolfgang Klausewitz Wolfgang Klausewitz (20 July 1921 – 31 August 2018) was a German zoologist, ichthyologist, marine biologist and biohistorian. Early life Klausewitz was born in Berlin. He attended school in Berlin, then, in 1941, was sent as a soldier to North ...

described the species, originally assigning it to the genus ''

Tripterygion ''Tripterygion'' is a genus of fish in the family Tripterygiidae, the threefin blennies, the species of which are found in the north eastern Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea. Species * '' Tripterygion delaisi'' Cadenat ...

'' under "''T. abeli''". It was later reassigned to ''

Helcogramma ''Helcogramma'' is a genus in the triplefin family Tripterygiidae. The blennies in the genus ''Helcogramma'' are found throughout the Indo-Pacific and in the South Atlantic Ocean off the islands of St Helena and Ascension. Characteristics The ...

'', before being reassigned to ''Enneapterygius'' by W. Holleman in 2005. The fish is named in honor of Austrian biologist Erich F. Abel (1919-1995) of the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (, ) is a public university, public research university in Vienna, Austria. Founded by Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria, Duke Rudolph IV in 1365, it is the oldest university in the German-speaking world and among the largest ...

, who worked on the ecology and ethology of fishes of the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...

and the

Red Sea The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and th ...

, and who donated the type specimens from the Red Sea to the

Senckenberg Museum The Naturmuseum Senckenberg () is a museum of natural history, located in Frankfurt am Main. It is the second-largest of its kind in Germany. In 2010, almost 517,000 people visited the museum, which is owned by the Senckenberg Nature Research S ...

Distribution

The yellow triplefin is a

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 ...

blenny found in

coral reef A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in group ...

s located in the western

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), ...

; in the

, the East African coast,

KwaZulu-Natal KwaZulu-Natal (, also referred to as KZN) is a Provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the government merged the Zulu people, Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu ("Place of the Zulu" in Zulu language, Zulu) and ...

Mauritius Mauritius, officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island country in the Indian Ocean, about off the southeastern coast of East Africa, east of Madagascar. It includes the main island (also called Mauritius), as well as Rodrigues, Ag ...

Seychelles Seychelles (, ; ), officially the Republic of Seychelles (; Seychellois Creole: ), is an island country and archipelagic state consisting of 155 islands (as per the Constitution) in the Indian Ocean. Its capital and largest city, Victoria, ...

Comoros The Comoros, officially the Union of the Comoros, is an archipelagic country made up of three islands in Southeastern Africa, located at the northern end of the Mozambique Channel in the Indian Ocean. Its capital and largest city is Moroni, ...

and St. Brandon Shoals. Due to a lack of major threats to the species, and its wide distribution, the

IUCN redlist The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is an inventory of the global conservation status and extinction risk of biological spe ...

ranked it as "Least Concern" in 2009.

References

External links

Yellow triplefin
at

World Register of Marine Species The World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) is a taxonomic database that aims to provide an authoritative and comprehensive catalogue and list of names of marine organisms. Content The content of the registry is edited and maintained by scien ...

Yellow triplefin
at

ITIS The Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) is an American partnership of federal agencies designed to provide consistent and reliable information on the taxonomy of biological species. ITIS was originally formed in 1996 as an interagenc ...

* Yellow triplefin Taxa named by Wolfgang Klausewitz Fish described in 1960 {{Tripterygiidae-stub