The warty frogfish or clown frogfish (''Antennarius maculatus'') is a marine fish belonging to 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 ...

Antennariidae.

Description

The warty frogfish grows up to long. Like other members of its family, it has a globulous, extensible body, and its soft skin is covered with small dermal

spinule Spinules are small spines or thorns (vertebral columns) that are part of biological and manmade structures. The word originates from the Latin word and is often used in botany and zoology. The presence or absence of spinules, and their shape, can ...

s. The skin is covered with numerous small, wart-like protuberances. Its large

prognathous Prognathism, also called Habsburg jaw or Habsburgs' jaw primarily in the context of its prevalence amongst members of the House of Habsburg, is a positional relationship of the Human mandible, mandible or maxilla to the skeletal base where eithe ...

mouth allows it to consume prey its same size. The coloring of its body is extremely variable because it tends to match its living environment. Frogfishes have the capacity to change coloration and pigment pattern in a few weeks : during

coral bleaching Coral bleaching is the process when corals become white due to various stressors, such as changes in temperature, light, or nutrients. Bleaching occurs when coral polyps expel the zooxanthellae (dinoflagellates that are commonly referred to as alg ...

events, they can even turn to plain white to blend in with the environment. However, the dominant coloration goes from white to black, passing through a whole range of related nuances such as cream, pink, yellow, red, and brown, often with dark, circular spots and/or with saddles. Some heavily spotted specimens can easily be confused with its close relative '' Antennarius pictus''. This characteristic can help to separate them: usually, ''A. maculatus'' has red or orange margins on all fins and sometimes a spike of the saddle blotch starts posterior to the eye. The first dorsal spine, the

illicium ''Illicium'' is a genus of flowering plants treated as part of the family Schisandraceae,

is modified and is used as a fishing rod. Its extremity is endowed with a characteristic

esca The anglerfish are fish of the teleost order Lophiiformes (). They are bony fish named for their characteristic mode of predation, in which a modified luminescent fin ray (the esca or illicium) acts as a lure for other fish. The luminescence co ...

( lure), which looks like a small fish with a pinkish to brownish coloration. The illicium is twice the length of the second dorsal spine and its often darkly banded. The second dorsal spine is practically straight and is mobile, and the third one is bent towards the back of the body; both are membranously attached to the head. They are well separated from each other and also from the

dorsal fin A dorsal fin is a fin located on the back of most marine and freshwater vertebrates within various taxa of the animal kingdom. Many species of animals possessing dorsal fins are not particularly closely related to each other, though through conv ...

.Pietsch & Grobecker, ‘’Frogfishes of the world’’, Stanford University Press, 1987, The

pectoral fin Fins are distinctive anatomical features composed of bony spines or rays protruding from the body of a fish. They are covered with skin and joined together either in a webbed fashion, as seen in most bony fish, or similar to a flipper, as ...

s are angled and help, with the

pelvic fin Pelvic fins or ventral fins are paired fins located on the ventral surface of fish. The paired pelvic fins are homologous to the hindlimbs of tetrapods. Structure and function Structure In actinopterygians, the pelvic fin consists of two en ...

s, to move the fish on the bottom and to keep a stable position for

ambush An ambush is a long-established military tactics, military tactic in which a combatant uses an advantage of concealment or the element of surprise to attack unsuspecting enemy combatants from concealed positions, such as among dense underbru ...

. The warty frogfish exhibits

biofluorescence Fluorescence is the emission of light by a substance that has absorbed light or other electromagnetic radiation. It is a form of luminescence. In most cases, the emitted light has a longer wavelength, and therefore a lower photon energy, tha ...

, that is, when illuminated by blue or ultraviolet light, it re-emits it as red, and appears differently than under white light illumination. Biofluorescence may assist intraspecific communication and camouflage. File:Antennarius maculatus.003 - Aquarium Finisterrae.jpg, File:Clown Frogfish (Antennarius maculatus) (8470598015).jpg, File:KumadoriIUOose.jpg, File:Warty Frogfish (Antennarius maculatus) (6103400392).jpg,

Distribution

''A. maculatus'' lives in the tropical waters of the Indo-Pacific area from

Mauritius Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label=Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It incl ...

and Reunion Island of the center of the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by th ...

to the western part of the

Pacific Ocean 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 ...

Habitat

The warty frogfish is found in sheltered rocky and coral reefs; adults are usually associated with

sponge Sponges, the members of the phylum Porifera (; meaning 'pore bearer'), are a basal animal clade as a sister of the diploblasts. They are multicellular organisms that have bodies full of pores and channels allowing water to circulate through t ...

s down to deep.

Feeding

As all frogfishes, ''A. hispidus'' is a voracious carnivore which can attack all small animals that pass within its "strike range", mainly fishes. Its prey can vary in size to close to its own size.

Behaviour

Like other members of their family, they have a

benthic 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 "t ...

and solitary lifestyle. They gather during mating period, but do not tolerate each other any more after the act of

fertilization Fertilisation or fertilization (see spelling differences), also known as generative fertilisation, syngamy and impregnation, is the fusion of gametes to give rise to a new individual organism or offspring and initiate its development. Proce ...

. The female can kill or eat the male if he stays close.

References

External links

* *http://www.frogfish.ch/species-arten/Antennarius-maculatus.html *http://www.fishbase.org/summary/Antennarius-maculatus.html *http://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=164556 *http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=217850 * {{Taxonbar, from=Q1477089 Antennariidae Fish described in 1840 Taxa named by Julien Desjardins