The Mexican hogfish, ''Bodianus diplotaenia'', is a species of wrasse native to the eastern Pacific Ocean. Adults inhabit rocky or coral areas at depths of 5–75 m. Sometimes, they are also found on sandy bottoms and where marine plants abound. They are solitary or form aggregations of only a few individuals. Mexican hogfish feed on crabs, brittle stars,

mollusks Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is esti ...

, and sea urchins. At night, they gather in cracks and crevices of rocks and caves to sleep. The Mexican hogfish starts life as a female, and later becomes a functional male. Males defend temporary reproductive territories called leks. The sex change may be due to local social conditions, but it may also have a genetic component, since the reversal occurs over a limited size range. They are

oviparous Oviparous animals are animals that lay their eggs, with little or no other embryonic development within the mother. This is the reproductive method of most fish, amphibians, most reptiles, and all pterosaurs, dinosaurs (including birds), and ...

, with distinct pairing during breeding.

Description

The body of the Mexican hogfish is robust and compressed. Large males have a pronounced hump between their eyes. The snout is pointed. They have a canine tooth at the rear of top jaw, and two pairs of strong canines at front of the top and bottom jaws. They have 10 dorsal fins and 12

anal fins Fins are distinctive anatomical features composed of bony spines or rays protruding from the body of a fish. They are covered with skin and joined together either in a webbed fashion, as seen in most bony fish, or similar to a flipper, as se ...

. Adult males have long filaments on their tail fin lobes and prolonged rays posteriorly on the dorsal and

. They have 17 pectoral rays. The

lateral line The lateral line, also called the lateral line organ (LLO), is a system of sensory organs found in fish, used to detect movement, vibration, and pressure gradients in the surrounding water. The sensory ability is achieved via modified epithelial ...

is unbroken and smoothly arched. They have 31 large scales with pores on the

. The maximum size is up to 76 cm, the common size is up to 35 cm. In the initial phase, Mexican hogfish are reddish, grading to yellow on the posterior part of the body and the caudal fin. They have a pair of blackish stripes (may be broken) on the upper half of the side. Individual scale margins are brown to reddish. In the terminal phase, they are bluish green with a brown head (except for a white lower jaw) and a narrow yellowish bar on the middle of the side. Juveniles are similar to initial phase but with a yellow base color.

Distribution

They are found in the eastern Pacific: Guadalupe Island and throughout the Gulf of California to Chile, including the Cocos, Malpelo, Revillagigedo and the Galapagos islands.

References

External links

* * {{Taxonbar, from=Q1969047 Mexican hogfish Taxa named by Theodore Gill Fish described in 1862