''Odax pullus'', the greenbone or butterfish, 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 ...

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

weed whiting The Odacidae are a small family of ray-finned fishes formerly classified within the order Perciformes, commonly known as cales, and weed whitings. They are related to the much larger families of the wrasses and parrotfish. More recent workers ha ...

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 ...

Odacidae, which 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 ...

. It inhabits shallow, rocky areas with brown algae growth, mainly ''

Carpophyllum ''Carpophyllum'' is a genus of brown algae belonging to the family Sargassaceae Sargassaceae is a family of brown algae in the order Fucales The Fucales (fucoids) are an order in the brown algae (class Phaeophyceae). The list of families in ...

'', upon which it grazes. This species can reach a length of SL and has been recorded as reaching . It is of minor importance to local commercial fisheries. Its range includes the

Chatham Islands The Chatham Islands ( ) (Moriori: ''Rēkohu'', 'Misty Sun'; mi, Wharekauri) are an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean about east of New Zealand's South Island. They are administered as part of New Zealand. The archipelago consists of about te ...

, Antipodes Islands and

Bounty Islands The Bounty Islands ( mi, Moutere Hauriri; "Island of angry wind") are a small group of 13 uninhabited granite islets and numerous rocks, with a combined area of , in the South Pacific Ocean. Territorially part of New Zealand, they lie about e ...

but it is not present around the

Three Kings Islands 3 is a number, numeral, and glyph. 3, three, or III may also refer to: * AD 3, the third year of the AD era * 3 BC, the third year before the AD era * March, the third month Books * ''Three of Them'' (Russian: ', literally, "three"), a 1901 n ...

, where it is replaced by the

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 ...

bluefinned butterfish The bluefinned butterfish (''Odax cyanoallix'') a species of marine ray-finned fish, a weed whiting from the family Odacidae, which is found only around Three Kings Islands about 80 km north of New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotear ...

''O. cyanoallix''.

References

Odax Fish described in 1801 Taxa named by Johann Reinhold Forster {{Ray-finned fish-stub