White point boxfish
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White-point boxfish ( Ostracion meleagris ), ♂ |
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| Ostracion meleagris | ||||||||||||
| Shaw , 1796 |
The white-point boxfish ( Ostracion meleagris ) lives in the entire Indo-Pacific , from the coast of East Africa to Mexico , north to the coasts of southern Japan and south to New Caledonia and the Tuamotu Archipelago . In addition to the nominate form O. meleagris meleagris , a distinction is made between the subspecies O. meleagris camurum from Japan to Hawaii and O. meleagris clippertonense in the eastern Pacific . In the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden , the white-point boxfish is being replaced by the blue-tailed boxfish ( Ostracion cyanurus ). It prefers lagoons and outer reefs , at depths of one to 30 meters. Young fish often hide in long-pricked sea urchins .
White-point boxfish, an exception among boxfish, have a pronounced sexual dimorphism , juveniles and females are dark brown to black with a dense pattern of white spots. They were previously described as a separate species, O. sebae . Adult males have blue flanks speckled with yellow dots, and the fins are also blue. A yellow band extends from the yellow eye to the upper edge of the tail peduncle and delimits the black, white speckled back.
Fin formula : dorsal 9, anal 9, caudal 10
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 , copepods and tunicates .
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
- White point boxfish on Fishbase.org (English)