The blue knifefish (''Labracoglossa nitida'') is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of ...

of marine ray-finned fish, a member of the subfamily

Scorpidinae The Scorpidinae, commonly known as halfmoons, knifefishes, and sweeps, are a subfamily of the family Kyphosidae, the sea chubs, a family of marine fish in the order Perciformes. The Scorpidinae are distributed throughout the Pacific and east Ind ...

of the

sea chub The sea chubs, also known as rudderfish and pilot fish and in Hawaiian as ''enenue'' or ''nenue'', are a family, Kyphosidae, of fishes in the order Perciformes native to the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans usually close to shore in marine ...

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

Kyphosidae The sea chubs, also known as rudderfish and pilot fish and in Hawaiian as ''enenue'' or ''nenue'', are a family, Kyphosidae, of fishes in the order Perciformes native to the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans usually close to shore in marine ...

. It is native to the

Pacific Ocean 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 definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...

waters off eastern Australia over to

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 List of islands of New Zealand, smaller islands. It is the ...

, where it occurs at depths reaching from the surface to in inshore waters over

reefs 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 processes— deposition of sand, wave erosion planing down rock o ...

. It can reach a length of , though most do not exceed .

References

Scorpidinae Fish described in 1916 {{Perciformes-stub