genus
Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...
of
parrotfish
Parrotfish (named for their mouths, which resemble a parrot's beak) are a clade of fish placed in the tribe Scarini of the wrasse family (Labridae). Traditionally treated as their own family (Scaridae), genetic studies have found them to be dee ...
from the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
Etymology
The word ''Chlorurus'' comes from the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
words 'chloros', which means green and 'oura', which means tail.
Evolution
''Chlorurus'' is most closely related to its sister genus ''
Scarus
''Scarus'' is a genus of parrotfishes. With 52 currently recognised Extant taxon, extant species,Froese, R. and D. Pauly, Eds''Scarus''.FishBase. 2013. it is by far the largest parrotfish genus. The vast majority are found at coral reef, reefs i ...
''. Most recent phylogenetic analyses find that the two genera diverged during the
late Miocene
The Late Miocene (also known as Upper Miocene) is a sub-epoch of the Miocene epoch (geology), Epoch made up of two faunal stage, stages. The Tortonian and Messinian stages comprise the Late Miocene sub-epoch, which lasted from 11.63 Ma (million ye ...
(
Messinian
The Messinian is in the geologic timescale the last age or uppermost stage of the Miocene. It spans the time between 7.246 ± 0.005 Ma and 5.333 ± 0.005 Ma (million years ago). It follows the Tortonian and is followed by the Zanclean, the fir ...
). In both genera, most of their diversification occurred some time later, within the last 3.5 million years during the
Pliocene
The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch (geology), epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.33 to 2.58
A 2012 phylogenetic analysis of 16 of the 18 ''Chlorurus'' species recovered 5 major
monophyletic
In biological cladistics for the classification of organisms, monophyly is the condition of a taxonomic grouping being a clade – that is, a grouping of organisms which meets these criteria:
# the grouping contains its own most recent co ...