''Xiphasia matsubarai'', the Japanese snake blenny, is a species of combtooth blenny found in the western Pacific and

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 ...

s just extending into the

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False Bay False Bay (Afrikaans ''Valsbaai'') is a body of water in the Atlantic Ocean between the mountainous Cape Peninsula and the Hottentots Holland Mountains in the extreme south-west of South Africa. The mouth of the bay faces south and is demarcat ...

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. This species can be found at depths ranging from the surface to . This species reaches in SL. This species feeds primarily on

bony fish Osteichthyes (), popularly referred to as the bony fish, is a diverse superclass of fish that have skeletons primarily composed of bone tissue. They can be contrasted with the Chondrichthyes, which have skeletons primarily composed of cartilag ...

, rising to the surface at night to feed. It can also be found in the

aquarium An aquarium (plural: ''aquariums'' or ''aquaria'') is a vivarium of any size having at least one transparent side in which aquatic plants or animals are kept and displayed. Fishkeepers use aquaria to keep fish, invertebrates, amphibians, aq ...

trade.

Description

''Xiphasia matsubarai'' has an elongated body that resembles an eel, and has a dorsal fin that covers the whole length of the body. They have gray-brown stripes that cover the length of their bodies starting at the head. The head is small and it is rounded anteriorly. The eyes are slightly smaller and located near the lateral sides of the head. It does not have any scales. They have a single row of incisor teeth and large canines. The bottom canines are significantly longer than the canines in the upper jaw. The article identified distinct morphological characteristics and sequence analysis that helped identify ''X. matsubarai''. Smith-Vanzi and Shen made important comparisons between the ''X. matsubarai'' and the '' X. setifer'', which included fin length and color. This supported the initial discovery of the snake blenny.

Name

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 the Japanese

ichthyologist Ichthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish, including bony fish ( Osteichthyes), cartilaginous fish (Chondrichthyes), and jawless fish (Agnatha). According to FishBase, 33,400 species of fish had been described as of Octobe ...

Kiyomatsu Matsubara was a Japanese marine biologist, ichthyologist, and herpetologist. Born Kiyomatsu Sakamoto in Hyogo Prefecture, Kiyomatsu Matsubara was the first professor of the Department of Fisheries of the University of Kyoto and is considered to be the fou ...

(1907-1968) of

Kyoto University , mottoeng = Freedom of academic culture , established = , type = National university, Public (National) , endowment = ¥ 316 billion (2.4 1000000000 (number), billion USD) , faculty = 3,480 (Teaching Staff) , administrative_staff ...

who was a colleague of the two authors and who named this species in his honour in gratitude for the kindness he had shown them.

References

* Okada, Y. and K. Suzuki 1952 (30 Nov.) A new blennoid fish from the Sea of Japan. ''Report of Faculty of Fisheries Prefectural University of Mie'' v. 1 (no. 2): 75-77.'' * Yi, M., Zhao, C., Su, X. et al. J. Ocean. Limnol. (2018) 36: 1401. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00343-018-7105-x {{Taxonbar, from=Q3753688 matsubarai Fish described in 1952