The Garibaldi, known historically also as the Catalina goldfish and marine goldfish and now commonly as the Garibaldi damselfish (''Hypsypops rubicundus'') 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 bright orange fish in the

damselfish Damselfish are those within the subfamilies Abudefdufinae, Chrominae, Lepidozyginae, Pomacentrinae, and Stegastenae within the family Pomacentridae. Most species within this group are relatively small, with the largest species being about 30 ...

family. It occurs in the

subtropical The subtropical zones or subtropics are geographical zone, geographical and Köppen climate classification, climate zones to the Northern Hemisphere, north and Southern Hemisphere, south of the tropics. Geographically part of the Geographical z ...

northeastern part of the Pacific Ocean. The English name, Garibaldi, is based on an Italian surname and is a reference to the Italian general and political figure

Giuseppe Garibaldi Giuseppe Maria Garibaldi ( , ;In his native Ligurian language, he is known as ''Gioxeppe Gaibado''. In his particular Niçard dialect of Ligurian, he was known as ''Jousé'' or ''Josep''. 4 July 1807 – 2 June 1882) was an Italian general, patr ...

, whose followers often wore a characteristic scarlet or red shirt. As is the case in all damselfish, male Garibaldis aggressively defend the nest site after the female lays eggs.

Description

Adult fish in this species are orange in color. It is the largest member of the

family and can grow up to in length. Juveniles are more reddish, and have many small iridescent blue spots, which they lose as they become adult. Adult Garibaldis also have a more opaque tail and dorsal fin. The Garibaldi is the official marine

state fish This is a list of official and unofficial U.S. state fishes: __TOC__ Table See also * Lists of U.S. state insignia * Lists of U.S. state animals Notes References Netstate.com state fish tables External links {{state insignia .State ...

of California and is protected in Californian coastal waters.California State Library - History and Culture - State Symbols
/ref> File:Garibaldi, Catalina Island, Channel Islands, California.jpg File:Garibaldi Damsel.jpg File:Garibaldi fish closeup.jpg File:JuvGaribaldi.jpg

Distribution and habitat

Garibaldis are found in water from a depth of up to depth, usually in association with rock reefs, and typically over rocky sea-bottoms. This species is native to the north-eastern subtropical parts of the

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 ...

, ranging from

Monterey Bay Monterey Bay is a bay of the Pacific Ocean located on the coast of the U.S. state of California, south of the San Francisco Bay Area and its major city at the south of the bay, San Jose. San Francisco itself is further north along the coast, by a ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, to

Guadalupe Island Guadalupe Island ( es, Isla Guadalupe, link=no) is a volcanic island located off the western coast of Mexico's Baja California Peninsula and about southwest of the city of Ensenada in the state of Baja California, in the Pacific Ocean. The ...

Baja California Baja California (; 'Lower California'), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California), is a state in Mexico. It is the northernmost and westernmost of the 32 federal entities of Mex ...

Behavior

Garibaldis feed mainly on

invertebrate Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

s, which they remove from the rocks. Like most damselfish, adult Garibaldis maintain a home

territory A territory is an area of land, sea, or space, particularly belonging or connected to a country, person, or animal. In international politics, a territory is usually either the total area from which a state may extract power resources or a ...

. The male clears a sheltered nest site within his territory; the female then deposits eggs within the nest. The male guards the nest area until the eggs hatch, which takes 19–21 days. During the time period that the eggs are developing, the male Garibaldi aggressively tries to keep all other fish away from the (very edible) eggs, and will boldly attack much larger swimming creatures, including humans, to the point of biting divers in order to try to drive them away from the area where the eggs are deposited.

In aquarium

It is peaceful during the juvenile period. But as long as the body is slightly larger, it will show territorial rights to other meek fish and compete with other small fish for territory.Youtube <> Creatures section, Damselfish - Author:Sublanding Fish

020-06-19 The hyphen-minus is the most commonly used type of hyphen, widely used in digital documents. It is the only character that looks like a minus sign or a dash in many character sets such as ASCII or on most keyboards, so it is also used as such. ...

/ref>

References

External links

* * {{Taxonbar, from=Q1338609 Pomacentridae Fauna of California Fauna of the Baja California Peninsula Symbols of California Fish described in 1854 Taxa named by Charles Frédéric Girard Giuseppe Garibaldi