Pelts of fur
| Pelts of fur | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Caracanthus | ||||||||||||
| Krøyer , 1845 |
Fur clumps ( Caracanthus ( Gr .:, "Kara" = face + "akantha" = thorn)) are a genus of small marine fish from the family of scorpion fish (Scorpaenidae) living between hard corals . They are also called coral stools, are the only genus of the monotypical subfamily Caracanthinae and comprise four species.
Fur clumps live in harem groups, with one male and several females in the tropical areas of the Pacific and Indian Oceans between the branches of the branching hard coral genera Acropora , Pocillopora and Stylophora . There they hold on with their powerful pelvic fins.
features
Pelts of fur are three to five centimeters long. They have a stocky, laterally strongly flattened body. Instead of the scales, their skin is densely covered with small, rough skin papillae, which gives them their furry appearance. The sideline is protected by tubular scales. Pelts grow to be about 5 cm. The mouth is terminal and small. The only dorsal fin is divided by an incision into the part supported by six to eight fin spines and the part supported by 11 to 14 soft fin rays. Like all scorpion fish, fur clumps have poison glands in the rays of their dorsal fins. The anal fin has two spines and 11 to 14 soft rays, the pectoral fins 11 to 14 fin rays. The tiny ventral fins are supported by a spine and two or three short soft rays.
Way of life
Similar to the coral gobies, the fur clumps live in the coral reefs of the Indo-Pacific, hidden in knotty hard corals (Scleractinia) of the genus Acropora and the family Pocilloporidae . They swim poorly and feed on crabs and other small animals that get between the coral branches.
species
- Caracanthus maculatus ( Gray , 1831)
- Caracanthus madagascariensis ( Guichenot , 1869)
- Caracanthus typicus Krøyer , 1845
- Caracanthus unipinna ( Gray , 1831)
literature
- Joseph S. Nelson : Fishes of the World , John Wiley & Sons, 2006, ISBN 0-471-25031-7
- Hans A. Baensch / Robert A. Patzner: Mergus Sea Water Atlas Volume 6 Non-Perciformes (Non-Perciformes) , Mergus-Verlag, Melle, ISBN 3-88244-116-X
