''Kyphosus elegans'', the Cortez sea chub or Cortez chub, is a species 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 hor ...

, a

sea chub The sea chubs, also known as rudderfish and pilot fish and in Hawaiian as ''enenue'' or ''nenue'', are a family, Kyphosidae, of fishes in the order Perciformes native to the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans usually close to shore in marine w ...

from 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 ...

Kyphosidae The sea chubs, also known as rudderfish and pilot fish and in Hawaiian as ''enenue'' or ''nenue'', are a family, Kyphosidae, of fishes in the order Perciformes native to the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans usually close to shore in marine w ...

. It is found in the eastern Pacific Ocean where it is of minor importance to commercial fisheries.

Description

''Kyphosus elegans'' has an oval, laterally compressed body with a small head and a pointed snout, the forehead slopes steeply in front of the eyes. The mouth is small and when closed the

maxilla The maxilla (plural: ''maxillae'' ) in vertebrates is the upper fixed (not fixed in Neopterygii) bone of the jaw formed from the fusion of two maxillary bones. In humans, the upper jaw includes the hard palate in the front of the mouth. The t ...

are partially hidden beneath the preorbital bones. The teeth are very characteristic and form a single row in the front of both jaws, they are incisiform and have a rather lanceolate shape, resembling the head of a hockey stick, they have compressed roots and they are set horizontally, creating a striated plate within the oral cavity, There are teeth on the

vomer The vomer (; lat, vomer, lit=ploughshare) is one of the unpaired facial bones of the skull. It is located in the midsagittal line, and articulates with the sphenoid, the ethmoid, the left and right palatine bones, and the left and right maxill ...

too. The

dorsal fin A dorsal fin is a fin located on the back of most marine and freshwater vertebrates within various taxa of the animal kingdom. Many species of animals possessing dorsal fins are not particularly closely related to each other, though through conv ...

is continuous, the front part contains 10-11 spines which can be folded into a groove which is covered in scales, the rear part has 13 soft rays. with the first few rays being higher than the rest. The

anal fin 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 ...

has 2-3 spines and 12 soft with the longest rays being at the front and these are half the length of the base of the anal fin. The

caudal fin 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 ...

is forked. Much of the body is covered in small, thick, rough scales except for a patch between the eyes. 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 ...

contains 61-69 scales, of which 52-57 have pores. The body may be silvery in colour or it can be bronze or brown, they may also show a mottled pattern of white spots over the body. The mottle pattern is more commonly seen in fish demonstrating

territorial 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 ...

behaviour. The tail is dusky. This species has a maximum

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 ...

of , although a more common total length is .

Distribution

''Kyphosus elegans'' is found in the eastern Pacific Ocean from the

Gulf of California The Gulf of California ( es, Golfo de California), also known as the Sea of Cortés (''Mar de Cortés'') or Sea of Cortez, or less commonly as the Vermilion Sea (''Mar Bermejo''), is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean that separates the Baja Ca ...

to Panama, it also occurs in the Galapagos, and other eastern Pacific islands.

Habitat and biology

''Kyphosus elegans'' is a coastal fish, the adults are found on reef flats or on reefs, while the juveniles are often found in tidal pools. It sometimes forms mixed schools with ''

Kyphosus analogus ''Kyphosus'' is a genus of sea chubs native to the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans. It is the only genus in the subfamily Kyphosinae of the family Kyphosidae. Species There are currently 16 recognized species in this genus: * '' Kyphosus ana ...

'' and also with ''

Prionurus laticlavius ''Prionurus laticlavius'' is a tropical fish found in coral reefs in the eastern central 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 t ...

'', with which it also grazes. This species feeds mainly on attached algae and will occasionally east plankton and benthic invertebrates. An analysis of the somach contents of sampled specimens indicated that ''

Sargassum ''Sargassum'' is a genus of brown (class Phaeophyceae) macroalgae (seaweed) in the order Fucales. Numerous species are distributed throughout the temperate and tropical oceans of the world, where they generally inhabit shallow water and coral re ...

'' is the main algae eaten. It is the host of several ectoparasites such as '' Caligus chamelensis'', '' C. latigenitalis'', '' C. mutabilis'' or '' C. serratus''.

Fisheries

''Kyphosus elegans'' is considered important for commercial fisheries in the

Gulf of Montijo A gulf is a large inlet from the ocean into the landmass, typically with a narrower opening than a bay, but that is not observable in all geographic areas so named. The term gulf was traditionally used for large highly-indented navigable bodies ...

in Panama.

Species description and taxonomy

''Kyphosus elegans'' was first formally described as ''Pimelepterus elegans'' in 1869 by Wilhelm Peters from a type purchased in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, western Mexico. In 1880

Henri Émile Sauvage Henri Émile Sauvage (22 September 1842 in Boulogne-sur-Mer – 3 January 1917 in Boulogne-sur-Mer) was a French paleontologist, ichthyologist, and herpetologist. He was a leading expert on Mesozoic fish and reptiles.Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

from specimens which had been sent to him by a French consul there and named it as ''Kyphosus sandvicensis'' but there appears to have been a mix up as his description does not match the

type specimen In biology, a type is a particular wiktionary:en:specimen, specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to a ...

lodged in the

Muséum national d'histoire naturelle The French National Museum of Natural History, known in French as the ' (abbreviation MNHN), is the national natural history museum of France and a ' of higher education part of Sorbonne Universities. The main museum, with four galleries, is loc ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

and recent workers have found that ''K. sandvicensis'' is a

junior synonym The Botanical and Zoological Codes of nomenclature treat the concept of synonymy differently. * In botanical nomenclature, a synonym is a scientific name that applies to a taxon that (now) goes by a different scientific name. For example, Linna ...

of ''K. elegans'', although

Fishbase FishBase is a global species database of fish species (specifically finfish). It is the largest and most extensively accessed online database on adult finfish on the web.

still treats it as a valid species, with a note that it is a

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are all ...

of ''K. elegans''.

References

External links

* * {{Taxonbar, from=Q2051609 elegans Fish described in 1869 Taxa named by Wilhelm Peters