Cheek striped licorice

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Cheek striped licorice
Cheek striped lipfish (Oxycheilinus digramma), male

Cheek striped lipfish ( Oxycheilinus digramma ), male

Systematics
Perch relatives (Percomorphaceae)
Order : Labriformes
Family : Wrasse (Labridae)
Tribe : Wrasse (Cheilinini)
Genre : Oxycheilinus
Type : Cheek striped licorice
Scientific name
Oxycheilinus digramma
( Lacépède , 1801)

The cheek- striped lipfish ( Oxycheilinus digramma ) lives in the Red Sea and the tropical Indo-Pacific from East Africa to the Marshall Islands and Samoa .

features

Its beefy shape resembles a small grouper. Cheek-striped lipfish are 30 to 35 centimeters long. The long dorsal fin is supported by nine hard rays and ten soft rays, the anal fin has three hard and eight to eleven soft rays. Young fish are gray to red-brown. Her tail and that of the females are yellow. Males are beautifully green-blue and reddish in color. Their tail is blue. The cheek striped lipfish is similar to the black ring wrasse ( C. unifasciatus ), but it always lacks the white band on the back of the body typical of this species and the parallel red lines behind the eyes.

Way of life

The cheek-striped lipfish inhabit coral-rich lagoons and outer reefs possibly to depths of 120 meters. The juvenile fish stay more in protected reef areas near the coast, especially between soft corals and sessile, stinging hydrozoa . The fish mainly eat hard-shelled invertebrates such as molluscs , crustaceans and sea ​​urchins . The species has been observed swimming between groups of red mullets and taking on the color of these fish to camouflage themselves. The cheek-striped lipfish suddenly emerges from the group in order to prey on smaller fish.

literature

  • Hans A. Baensch , Helmut Debelius, Horst Moosleitner: The common care of invertebrates and tropical marine fish in the aquarium. Mergus, Melle 1997, ISBN 3-88244-110-0 ( Sea Water Atlas. Volume 1).
  • Dieter Eichler, Robert F. Myers: Coral fish. Central Indo-Pacific. Year, Hamburg 1997, ISBN 3-86132-225-0 .
  • Ewald Lieske, Robert F. Myers: Coral fish of the world. Year, Hamburg 1994, ISBN 3-86132-112-2 .

Web links