''Rotuma lewisi'', or Lewis's wriggler, is a species of fish in 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 ...

Xenisthmidae Collared wrigglers are perciform fishes in the family Xenisthmidae. They are native to the Indian and Pacific Oceans, where they are mostly reef A reef is a ridge or shoal of rock, coral or similar relatively stable material, lying beneath ...

, which is regarded as a

synonymous 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 ...

with the

Eleotridae Eleotridae is a family of fish commonly known as sleeper gobies, with about 34 genera and 180 species. Most species are found in the tropical Indo-Pacific region, but there are also species in subtropical and temperate regions, warmer parts of th ...

. ''Rotuma'' is a

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. The generic name refers to the volcanic island of

Rotuma Rotuma is a Fijian dependency, consisting of Rotuma Island and nearby islets. The island group is home to a large and unique Polynesian indigenous ethnic group which constitutes a recognisable minority within the population of Fiji, known as " ...

, north of

Fiji Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists ...

while the

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 ...

honours Anthony D. Lewis, a Fisheries Officer of the Government of Fiji who supported Springer's field work in Fiji. It has been recorded from Fiji, Tonga, the

Santa Cruz Islands The Santa Cruz Islands are a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean, part of Temotu Province of the nation of Solomon Islands discovered by the Spaniards. They lie approximately 250 miles (400 km) to the southeast of the Solomon Islands ...

, the

Comoros Islands The Comoro Islands or Comoros (Shikomori ''Komori''; ar, جزر القمر , ''Juzur al-qamar''; french: Les Comores) form an archipelago of volcanic islands situated off the southeastern coast of Africa, to the east of Mozambique and northwe ...

, and the

Chesterfield Islands The Chesterfield Islands (''îles Chesterfield'' in French) are a French archipelago of New Caledonia located in the Coral Sea, northwest of Grande Terre, the main island of New Caledonia. The archipelago is 120 km long and 70 km ...

Distribution

Southwest

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

References

Xenisthmidae Eleotridae Fish described in 1988 {{Gobiiformes-stub