The vagabond butterflyfish (''Chaetodon vagabundus''), also known as the crisscross butterflyfish, is a species of marine ray-finned fish, a

butterflyfish The butterflyfish are a group of conspicuous tropical marine fish of the family Chaetodontidae; the bannerfish and coralfish are also included in this group. The approximately 129 species in 12 genera are found mostly on the reefs of the Atlant ...

belonging to the family Chaetodontidae. It is found in the

Indo-Pacific The Indo-Pacific is a vast biogeographic region of Earth. In a narrow sense, sometimes known as the Indo-West Pacific or Indo-Pacific Asia, it comprises the tropical waters of the Indian Ocean, the western and central Pacific Ocean, and the ...

region.

Description

The vagabond butterflyfish has a whitish body which is marked with two series of thin dark diagonal lines perpendicular to each other, forming a chevron pattern. There is also a wide black vertical band running through the eye and a second band running through the caudal peduncle and a third on the centre of the caudal fin. There are very thin orange horizontal lines over the forehead. The juveniles have a black dot on the soft-rayed part of their dorsal fin, near the posterior end. The dorsal fin contains 13 spines and 23-25 soft rays while the anal fin contains 3 spines and 19-22 soft rays. This species grows to a maximum total length of although a more typical length would be .

Distribution

The vagabond butterflyfish is found in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It occurs from the eastern coast of Africa, where it is found from Socotra to

KwaZulu-Natal KwaZulu-Natal (, also referred to as KZN and known as "the garden province") is a province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu ("Place of the Zulu" in Zulu) and Natal Province were merged. It is locate ...

in South Africa; across the Indian Ocean east as far as the Line and Gambier Islands in Polynesia, north to southern Japan and south to New South Wales and Rapa Iti.

Habitat and biology

The vagabond butterflyfish is found in reef areas including coastal reef flats within the reef, lagoons and more exposed outer reef slopes. It can tolerate a variety of environmental conditions, such as turbid waters and freshwater plumes in the vicinity of the mouths of streams. They are omnivorous, known to feed on

algae Algae (; singular alga ) is an informal term for a large and diverse group of photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. It is a polyphyletic grouping that includes species from multiple distinct clades. Included organisms range from unicellular mic ...

coral polyp Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and sec ...

s, crustaceans and worms. These

oviparous Oviparous animals are animals that lay their eggs, with little or no other embryonic development within the mother. This is the reproductive method of most fish, amphibians, most reptiles, and all pterosaurs, dinosaurs (including birds), and ...

monogamous Monogamy ( ) is a form of Dyad (sociology), dyadic Intimate relationship, relationship in which an individual has only one Significant other, partner during their lifetime. Alternately, only one partner at any one time (Monogamy#Serial monogamy, ...

fish form stable pairs with both pair members jointly defending a feeding territory against other pairs. However they often accompany other species without being aggressive. By the standards of their genus, they are easily maintained in tanks.

Systematics

The vagabond butterflyfish was first formally described in 1758 by Carl Linnaeus in the 10th edition of his ''

Systema Naturae ' (originally in Latin written ' with the ligature æ) is one of the major works of the Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the system, now known as binomial nomen ...

''. It belongs to the large

subgenus In biology, a subgenus (plural: subgenera) is a taxonomic rank directly below genus. In the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, a subgeneric name can be used independently or included in a species name, in parentheses, placed between t ...

''Rabdophorus'' which might warrant recognition as a distinct genus. In this group, it almost certainly is a rather close relative of the

threadfin butterflyfish The threadfin butterflyfish (''Chaetodon auriga'') is a species of marine ray-finned fish belonging to the family (biology), family Chaetodontidae. It has a wide Indo-Pacific distribution. Distribution ''Chaetodon auriga'' is found in the Indo-P ...

(''C. auriga'') and the

Indian vagabond butterflyfish The Indian vagabond butterflyfish (''Chaetodon decussatus''), also known as the blackened butterflyfish or black-finned vagabond, is a species of marine ray-finned fish, a butterflyfish belonging to the family Chaetodontidae. It is found in the ...

(''C. decussatus''). The latter might be closer to the threadfin butterflyfish; as ''C. vagabundus'' has yielded abnormal mtDNA

12S rRNA Mitochondrially encoded 12S ribosomal RNA (often abbreviated as 12S or 12S rRNA), also known as Mitochondrial-derived peptide MOTS-c or Mitochondrial open reading frame of the 12S rRNA-c is the SSU rRNA of the mitochondrial ribosome. In humans, ...

sequence data this is hard to say however. The ''C. auriga'' species group shares the characteristic pattern of two areas of ascending and descending oblique lines; species differ conspicuously in hindpart coloration.

References

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q389163 Chaetodon Fish of the Red Sea Fish described in 1758 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus