The western footballer (''Neatypus obliquus''), also known as the footballer sweep, 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 ...

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 ...

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

to southern reefs of

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, where it can be found down to . It can also be found in the

aquarium An aquarium (plural: ''aquariums'' or ''aquaria'') is a vivarium of any size having at least one transparent side in which aquatic plants or animals are kept and displayed. Fishkeepers use aquaria to keep fish, invertebrates, amphibians, aq ...

trade. This species is currently the only known member of its

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

. The compressed body is silvery-blue, with orange to yellow diagonal striping bordered by a brownish black; fins match the shade of yellowy-orange. They reach a maximum length of . It occurs near inshore and offshore reefs of the southern

coast in active and large schools. The range is from

Shark Bay Shark Bay (Malgana: ''Gathaagudu'', "two waters") is a World Heritage Site in the Gascoyne region of Western Australia. The http://www.environment.gov.au/heritage/places/world/shark-bay area is located approximately north of Perth, on the ...

, to Flinders Island, South Australia. They feed on

benthic zone 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 " ...

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

zooplankton Zooplankton are the animal component of the planktonic community ("zoo" comes from the Greek word for ''animal''). Plankton are aquatic organisms that are unable to swim effectively against currents, and consequently drift or are carried along by ...

. Other species of its family are known as footballers, for the similarity to footballer's striped jumpers.

References

* *

External links

*
Fishes of Australia : ''Neatypus obliquus''
western footballer Vertebrates of Western Australia Fauna of South Australia western footballer {{Perciformes-stub