Starry triggerfish

Starry triggerfish
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Tetraodontiformes
Suborder: Tetraodontoidei
Family: Balistidae
Genus: Abalistes
Species: A. stellaris
Binomial name
Abalistes stellaris
(Bloch & J. G. Schneider, 1801)

The starry triggerfish (Abalistes stellaris), or flat-tailed triggerfish, is a tropical, harmless, oviparous bottom dweller, characterized by some white spots along the spinal dark band. The tail is dorsoventral and looks very thin, when looked upon in profile. There is a deep groove in front of the eye. The background colour is grey with olivegreen spots. Its mitochondrial DNA has been sequenced by the University of Tokyo, Japan.[1]

Nomenclature

The name of the species has been recently changed to Abalistes stellatus and the author of the taxon is now "Anonymous, 1798".[2] The species has also been recently differentiated from the closely related species Abalistes filamentosus.[2]

Length

Male adults grow up to 60 cm.

Habitat

Diet

Benthic animals such as crustaceans, crabs, mollusks; bony fish.

Status

Not in the IUCN Red List.

Economic use

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 6/30/2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.