The New Zealand urchin clingfish (''Dellichthys morelandi'') is a

clingfish Clingfishes are fishes of the family Gobiesocidae, the only family in the order Gobiesociformes. These fairly small to very small fishes are widespread in tropical and temperate regions, mostly near the coast, but a few species in deeper seas or ...

. It is found around

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

wherever

sea urchin Sea urchins () are spiny, globular echinoderms in the class Echinoidea. About 950 species of sea urchin live on the seabed of every ocean and inhabit every depth zone from the intertidal seashore down to . The spherical, hard shells (tests) of ...

s are present. Its length is between 2 and 3 cm. This species was described by John C. Briggs in 1955 and was thought to be the sole species in the

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispec ...

genus '' Dellichthys'' until 2018 when a new species, '' Dellichthys trnskii'', was described after being discovered from intertidal and shallow coastal waters of New Zealand in that year. Briggs gave the species its

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

in honour of

John Munne Moreland John "Jock" Munne Moreland (b 11 January 1921 Wanganui d. June 2012) was a New Zealand marine biologist and ichthyologist who worked at the Dominion Museum, later the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, in Wellington. Career He was brought up ...

(1921-2012) of the Dominion Museum in

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

References

* * Tony Ayling & Geoffrey Cox, ''Collins Guide to the Sea Fishes of New Zealand'', (William Collins Publishers Ltd, Auckland, New Zealand 1982) New Zealand urchin clingfish Endemic marine fish of New Zealand Taxa named by John Carmon Briggs Fish described in 1955 {{Gobiesociformes-stub