The Lethrinidae are a family of fishes in the order

Perciformes Perciformes (), also called the Percomorpha or Acanthopteri, is an order or superorder of ray-finned fish. If considered a single order, they are the most numerous order of vertebrates, containing about 41% of all bony fish. Perciformes means ...

commonly known as emperors, emperor breams, and pigface breams. These fish are found in tropical waters of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and ''Lethrinus atlanticus'' is also found in the eastern Atlantic Ocean. They are

benthic The benthic zone is the ecological region at the lowest level of a body of water such as an ocean, lake, or stream, including the sediment surface and some sub-surface layers. The name comes from ancient Greek, βένθος (bénthos), meaning "t ...

feeders, consuming

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 and small fishes. Some species have molariform teeth which they use to eat shelled invertebrates, such as

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

crab Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura, which typically have a very short projecting "tail" (abdomen) ( el, βραχύς , translit=brachys = short, / = tail), usually hidden entirely under the thorax. They live in all the ...

Gallery

File:Lethrinus olivaceus.jpg, Longface emperor ('' Lethrinus olivaceus'') File:Gnathodentex aureolineatus.jpg, Striped large-eye bream (''

Gnathodentex aureolineatus ''Gnathodentex'' is a genus of emperor fish. It is monotypic, being represented by a single species, the goldspot seabream (''Gnathodentex aureolineatus''), also known as the striped large-eye bream. Description The goldspot seabream is a medium ...

'') File:Monotaxis-grandoculis.JPG, Humpnose big-eye bream (''

Monotaxis grandoculis ''Monotaxis grandoculis'', the humpnose big-eye bream, bigeye barenose, bigeye bream, or bigeye emperor, is a species of emperor fish native to the Indian Ocean and the West and Central Pacific Ocean to the Hawaiian Islands. It inhabits areas wit ...

'')

References

*Carpenter, K. E. and G. R. Allen (Hrsg.): ''Emperor fishes and large-eye breams of the world (Family Lethrinidae). An annotated and illustrated catalogue of lethrinid species known to date.'' FAO Species Catalogue Vol. 9, Rom 1989.
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External links

Ichthyological Bulletin; No. 17: Fishes of the family Lethrinidae from the Western Indian Ocean
{{Taxonbar, from=Q31402 Fish of Hawaii Taxa named by Charles Lucien Bonaparte