''Chaetodon larvatus'', commonly known as the hooded butterflyfish or orangeface butterflyfish (and with many other common names), 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

ray-finned fish Actinopterygii (; ), members of which are known as ray-finned fishes, is a class of bony fish. They comprise over 50% of living vertebrate species. The ray-finned fishes are so called because their fins are webs of skin supported by bony or h ...

, a

butterflyfish The butterflyfish are a group of conspicuous tropical marine fish of the family Chaetodontidae; the bannerfish and coralfish are also included in this group. The approximately 129 species in 12 genera are found mostly on the reefs of the Atla ...

belonging to the

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

Chaetodontidae. It is found in the

Red Sea The Red Sea ( ar, البحر الأحمر - بحر القلزم, translit=Modern: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar, Medieval: Baḥr al-Qulzum; or ; Coptic: ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϩⲁϩ ''Phiom Enhah'' or ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϣⲁⲣⲓ ''Phiom ǹšari''; ...

and Gulf of Aden and has been recorded twice recently in the eastern

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ...

off Israel and Syria.Ali, M., Saad, A., Soliman, A., Rafrafi-Nouira, S., & Capape, C. (2017). Confirmed Occurrence in the Mediterranean Sea of the Red Sea Orange Face Butterflyfish Chaetodon larvatus (Osteichthyes: Chaetodontidae) and First Record from the Syrian Coast. Cahiers de Biologie Marine, 58(3), 367-369.

Description

It grows to a maximum size of

total length Fish measurement is the measuring of individual fish and various parts of their anatomies. These data are used in many areas of ichthyology, including taxonomy and fisheries biology. Overall length * Standard length (SL) is the length of a fish ...

. The body is powder blue in colour with a pattern of narrow, white

chevron Chevron (often relating to V-shaped patterns) may refer to: Science and technology * Chevron (aerospace), sawtooth patterns on some jet engines * Chevron (anatomy), a bone * '' Eulithis testata'', a moth * Chevron (geology), a fold in rock ...

-shaped bars. The head and front of the body are coloured intense red-orange. The back of the dorsal fin and the caudal fin are black.

Ecology and behaviour

The hooded butterflyfish is found in seaward and

lagoon A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by a narrow landform, such as reefs, barrier islands, barrier peninsulas, or isthmuses. Lagoons are commonly divided into ''coastal lagoons'' (or ''barrier lagoons'') ...

coral reef A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in groups. C ...

s. They usually swim around in pairs and are territorial. Normally this species feeds exclusively on the polyps of the tubular '' Acropora'' corals. However, given that it has been observed in the Mediterranean, where coral growth is limited, it may be able to adapt to a different diet.

Phylogeny

The hooded butterflyfish is a far western

sister species In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and ...

of the triangle butterflyfish ('' C. triangulum''), which lives in the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by t ...

, and '' C. baronessa'', which inhabits the Indo-Pacific. Together these species form the subgenus ''Gonochaetodon''. If '' Chaetodon'' is split up as some researchers propose, this group might go into ''Megaprotodon'' with other high-backed and square-bodied species, but its exact relationships are still not well known.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2376000 larvatus Fish of the Red Sea Fish described in 1829 Taxa named by Georges Cuvier