''Albula argentea'', the silver sharpjaw bonefish, is a
species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...
of
marine
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Marine or marines may refer to:
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* ...
fish found in the tropical western
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
. They grow up to .
Taxonomy and nomenclature
Bonefish were once believed to be a single species with a global distribution, but nine different species have since been identified. There are three identified species in the Atlantic and six in the Pacific.
''
Albula virgata'' (the longjaw bonefish) and ''
Albula oligolepis'' (the smallscale bonefish) were formerly assigned to this species, but are now recognized as distinct.
[Hidaka, K., Y. Iwatsuki and J.E. Randall, 2008. A review of the Indo-Pacific bonefishes of the Albula argentea complex, with a description of a new species. Ichthyol. Res. 55:53-64.]
References
Albuliformes
Fish of the Pacific Ocean
Taxa named by Johann Reinhold Forster
Fish described in 1801
{{albuliformes-stub