The spot-banded butterflyfish or spotband butterflyfish (''Chaetodon punctatofasciatus'') is a

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

of marine

ray-finned fish Actinopterygii (; ), members of which are known as ray-finned fish or actinopterygians, is a class of bony fish that comprise over 50% of living vertebrate species. They are so called because of their lightly built fins made of webbings of sk ...

, a

butterflyfish The butterflyfish are a group of conspicuous tropical ocean, marine fish of the family Chaetodontidae; the bannerfish and coralfish are also included in this group. The approximately 129 species in 12 genera are found mostly on the reefs of the ...

belonging to 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 ...

Chaetodontidae. It is from the western Pacific Ocean. It is found in the Indo- West Pacific region from

Christmas Island Christmas Island, officially the Territory of Christmas Island, is an States and territories of Australia#External territories, Australian external territory in the Indian Ocean comprising the island of the same name. It is about south o ...

in the eastern

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), ...

to the

Line Islands The Line Islands, Teraina Islands or Equatorial Islands () are a chain of 11 atolls (with partly or fully enclosed lagoons, except Vostok and Jarvis) and coral islands (with a surrounding reef) in the central Pacific Ocean, south of the Hawa ...

, north to the

Ryukyu Islands The , also known as the or the , are a chain of Japanese islands that stretch southwest from Kyushu to Geography of Taiwan, Taiwan: the Ryukyu Islands are divided into the Satsunan Islands (Ōsumi Islands, Ōsumi, Tokara Islands, Tokara and A ...

, south to the

Rowley Shoals The Rowley Shoals is a group of three atoll-like coral reefs south of the Timor Sea, about west of Broome on the northwestern Australian coast, centred on , on the edge of one of the widest continental shelves in the world. Each atoll covers a ...

and the northern

Great Barrier Reef The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system, composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over over an area of approximately . The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, ...

, and throughout

Micronesia Micronesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, consisting of approximately 2,000 small islands in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean. It has a close shared cultural history with three other island regions: Maritime Southeast Asia to the west, Poly ...

. Replaced by its close relative the

Peppered butterflyfish The peppered butterflyfish (''Chaetodon guttatissimus'') is a species marine ray-finned fish, a butterflyfish from the (family Chaetodontidae). It is found in the Indian Ocean. Description The peppered butterflyfish is silvery white in colour ma ...

(''C. guttatissimus'') in the Indian Ocean, these two species are

sympatric In biology, two closely related species or populations are considered sympatric when they exist in the same geographic area and thus frequently encounter each other. An initially interbreeding population that splits into two or more distinct spe ...

from Christmas Island to

Bali Bali (English:; Balinese language, Balinese: ) is a Provinces of Indonesia, province of Indonesia and the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands. East of Java and west of Lombok, the province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller o ...

. This is one of the members of the

subgenus In biology, a subgenus ( subgenera) is a taxonomic rank directly below genus. In the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, a subgeneric name can be used independently or included in a species name, in parentheses, placed between the ge ...

''Exornator''. With the Peppered butterflyfish it is part of a close-knit group which also includes the Pebbled butterflyfish ('' C. multicinctus'') and the

Sunset butterflyfish ''Chaetodon pelewensis'', the dot dash butterflyfish, spotbanded butterflyfish or punctato butterflyfish, is a species of marine ray-finned fish, a butterflyfish belonging to the family Chaetodontidae. It is found in the western Pacific Ocean. ...

('' C. pelewensis''). It is suspected that these four are able to produce fertile

hybrid Hybrid may refer to: Science * Hybrid (biology), an offspring resulting from cross-breeding ** Hybrid grape, grape varieties produced by cross-breeding two ''Vitis'' species ** Hybridity, the property of a hybrid plant which is a union of two diff ...

s. If the genus ''

Chaetodon ''Chaetodon'' is a tropical fish genus in the family (biology), family Chaetodontidae. Like their relatives, they are known as "butterflyfish". This genus is by far the largest among the Chaetodontidae, with about 90 living species included here, ...

'' is split up, ''Exornator'' might become a subgenus of ''Lepidochaetodon''. ''C. punctatofasciatus'' is the

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

of the subgenus ''Exornator'' and was first formally described in 1831 by the

French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

anatomist Anatomy () is the branch of morphology concerned with the study of the internal structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old scien ...

Georges Cuvier (1769–1832). The spot-banded butterflyfish grows to a maximum of 12 cm long. Its body is pale grey with close-set grey spots which are aligned in vertical bands, interspersed with yellow, on the upper sides and form horizontal rows on the lower sides. The

dorsal fin A dorsal fin is a fin on the back of most marine and freshwater vertebrates. Dorsal fins have evolved independently several times through convergent evolution adapting to marine environments, so the fins are not all homologous. They are found ...

has a yellow margin and there is a bright orange patch running through the

caudal peduncle Fins are moving appendages protruding from the body of fish that interact with water to generate thrust and help the fish swim. Apart from the tail or caudal fin, fish fins have no direct connection with the back bone and are supported only ...

. It is found in coral-rich areas and clear waters of seaward and

lagoon A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by a narrow landform, such as reefs, barrier islands, barrier peninsulas, or isthmuses. Lagoons are commonly divided into ''coastal lagoons'' (or ''barrier lagoons'') an ...

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 (non-living) processes such as deposition of sand or wave eros ...

. This fish feeds on filamentous

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

e and

coral polyp A polyp in zoology is one of two forms found in the phylum Cnidaria, the other being the medusa. Polyps are roughly cylindrical in shape and elongated at the axis of the vase-shaped body. In solitary polyps, the aboral (opposite to oral) end i ...

s and other

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 ...

References

External links

* spot-banded butterflyfish Fish of Palau

spotband butterflyfish The spot-banded butterflyfish or spotband butterflyfish (''Chaetodon punctatofasciatus'') is a species of marine ray-finned fish, a butterflyfish belonging to the family (biology), family Chaetodontidae. It is from the western Pacific Ocean. It ...

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