''Cantherhines dumerilii'' is a species of

fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of li ...

in the

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

Monacanthidae, the filefishes. Its common names include whitespotted filefish, barred filefish, orange-fin file, and yelloweye leatherjacket.Froese, R. and D. Pauly, Eds
Common names of ''Cantherhines dumerilii''.
FishBase. 2013. It is distributed in the

Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...

and

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 ...

s where it is found on coral reefs.

Description

This fish can reach in length but is more usually around . The dorsal fin has two spines and thirty-four to thirty-nine soft rays. The anal fin has no spines and twenty-eight to thirty-five soft rays. This fish has yellow eyes and its general color is grayish or yellowish-brown with about twelve vertical dark bars. The fleshy lips are white. The tail fin is small, rounded and orange and the other fins are yellowish. The spines on the caudal peduncle are orange, with the male having longer and deeper orange caudal spines and a darker orange caudal fin and darker eyes.

Etymology

The fish is named in honor of August Duméril (1812-1870), a herpetologist and ichthyologist, at the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle (Paris), who made the type specimen available to Hollard.

Distribution and habitat

''Cantherhines dumerilii'' is native to the Indo-Pacific region. Its range extends from the East African coast to French Polynesia, Japan and Hawaii. It is also present in the eastern Pacific Ocean off the coasts of Mexico and Colombia. It is a common resident of coral reefs and likes to have rock crevices and caves to retreat into if disturbed. Juveniles are

pelagic The pelagic zone consists of the water column of the open ocean, and can be further divided into regions by depth (as illustrated on the right). The word ''pelagic'' is derived . The pelagic zone can be thought of as an imaginary cylinder or wa ...

and sometimes hide under floating objects.

Behavior

The fish lives around

reef A reef is a ridge or shoal of rock, coral or similar relatively stable material, lying beneath the surface of a natural body of water. Many reefs result from natural, abiotic processes— deposition of sand, wave erosion planing down rock out ...

s down to depths of , but usually staying in shallower waters and sometimes nearing the surface. It is a shy fish, hiding if danger threatens. It is usually seen singly or in pairs and feeds on the tips of branching

coral Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and sec ...

algae Algae (; singular alga ) is an informal term for a large and diverse group of photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. It is a polyphyletic grouping that includes species from multiple distinct clades. Included organisms range from unicellular mic ...

sponge Sponges, the members of the phylum Porifera (; meaning 'pore bearer'), are a basal animal clade as a sister of the diploblasts. They are multicellular organisms that have bodies full of pores and channels allowing water to circulate through t ...

sea urchin Sea urchins () are spiny, globular echinoderms in the class Echinoidea. About 950 species of sea urchin live on the seabed of every ocean and inhabit every depth zone from the intertidal seashore down to . The spherical, hard shells (tests) of ...

s, and molluscs.

References

*Myers, R.F., 1991. Micronesian reef fishes. Second Ed. Coral Graphics, Barrigada, Guam. 298 p.

External links

* {{Species_named_after_A.M.C._Duméril Monacanthidae Fish described in 1854