Yellow-brown boxfish
| Yellow-brown boxfish | ||||||||||||
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Tan boxfish ( Ostracion cubicus ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Ostracion cubicus | ||||||||||||
| ( Bianconi , 1846) |
The yellow-brown boxfish ( Ostracion cubicus ) lives in the Red Sea and in the tropical Indo-Pacific from East Africa to the Ryūkyū Islands , Hawaii , Tuamotu and Lord Howe Island . It prefers lagoons and protected outer reefs , at depths of one to 35 meters. Young fish often hide in knotty Acropora stone corals.
The solitary fish feed on algae and the small animals living in them, as well as on bottom-dwelling invertebrates , such as molluscs , sponges , poly-bristles , crustaceans and foraminifera . Larger specimens also eat small fish.
features
The cubic shape of the body is characteristic of the species. The fish are yellow-brown, bluish to green with some irregular blue spots. The polygonal edges of the bone plates that make up the shell are highlighted in yellow. Young fish are yellow with a pattern of black dots. They later turn mustard-colored to greenish. Yellow-brown boxfish grow to be 45 to 50 centimeters long. The population in the Red Sea differs in color from the Indo-Pacific form and has been described as a separate species, Ostracion argus , analogous to the Japanese boxfish ( Ostracion immaculatus ) . However, the species was not generally recognized.
Fin formula : dorsal 8-9, anal 9, caudal 10, pect. 9-10.
Young fish
adolescent
mature
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literature
- Baensch, Patzner: Mergus Sea Water Atlas Volume 6 Non-Perciformes (non-perch-like) . Mergus-Verlag, Melle, ISBN 3-88244-116-X
- Ewald Lieske, Robert F. Myers: Coral fish of the world . Year Top Special Verlag Hamburg, ISBN 3-86132-112-2
- Dieter Eichler, Robert F. Myers: Coral fish Indo-Pacific . Jahr-Verlag GmbG & Co., ISBN 3-86132-225-0
Web links
- Tan boxfish on Fishbase.org (English)