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Chaetodon

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Chaetodon

Dan Schofield · via Wikipedia: Chaetodon · CC BY 4.0

These fish are commonly called butterflyfish.[1] With about 90 living species, it is the largest genus in its family.[1]

Scientific classification

  1. KingdomAnimalia
  2. PhylumChordata
  3. ClassActinopterygii
  4. DivisionTeleostei
  5. OrderAcanthuriformes
  6. FamilyChaetodontidae
  7. GenusChaetodon

Named by Linnaeus, 1758

Sources: Wikipedia taxobox: Chaetodon (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Quick Facts

Number of extant species
87 recognized species
Approximate total living species
about 90
Type species
Chaetodon capistratus
Earliest confirmed fossil
Early Oligocene of Italy (Chaetodon wattsi)

Facts from the source article.

Biology and range

The earliest confirmed Chaetodon fossils are from Early Oligocene coral reef deposits in Italy.[2] The species Chaetodon penniger from the late Oligocene of Azerbaijan cannot be confidently assigned to this genus due to incomplete fossils.[2] GBIF holds 362,104 occurrence records for Chaetodon.[3] The genus is found in marine and brackish environments.[4]

Fossil specimens that cannot be identified to species level but are assigned to Chaetodon hoefleri have been discovered in Late Oligocene deposits in Slovenia and in mid-late Miocene strata in Poland.[2] Based on molecular clock estimates, the evolutionary split between the lineage leading to Chaetodon and that leading to Chelmops occurred during the Late Eocene.[5]

What the specialist sources record

A 2007 molecular phylogenetics study by Fessler and Westneat sorted sampled Chaetodon species into several clades.[6] That study proposed splitting the genus into a core group around Chaetodon capistratus and possibly four other clades.[6] The monophyly of the Lepidochaetodon group is not fully established, and its relationships to Rhombochaetodon and Exornator remain unclear.[6] S.D. Blum's 1988 landmark phylogenetic assessment of osteology largely agrees with DNA sequence data on how the genus might be split.[7]

Both Prognathodes and Roa, which were previously included within Chaetodon, are now regarded as distinct genera.[8]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Chaetodon" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: FishBase (2006) (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Chaetodon" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Marrama', "A Rupelian Coral Reef Fish Assemblage from the Venetian Southern Alps (Berici Hills, Ne Italy)", Rivista Italiana di Paleontologia e Stratigrafia, 2022-04-28 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  3. GBIF Backbone Taxonomy and occurrence index, Chaetodon (taxon key 2369550). CC BY 4.0 (backbone); counts are facts. gbif.org
  4. World Register of Marine Species, Chaetodon (AphiaID 125954). CC BY 4.0. marinespecies.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Chaetodon" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Sepkoski (2002), Fessler & Westneat (2007); Paleobiology Database (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Chaetodon" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Molecular phylogenetics of the butterflyfishes (Chaetodontidae): Taxonomy and biogeography of a global coral reef fish family", Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 2007, p. 50–68 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Chaetodon" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Molecular phylogenetics of the butterflyfishes (Chaetodontidae): Taxonomy and biogeography of a global coral reef fish family", Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 2007, p. 50–68; "Molecular phylogeny of Chaetodon (Teleostei: Chaetodontidae) in the Indo-West Pacific: evolution in geminate species pairs and species groups", Raffles Bulletin of Zoology Supplement, 2007, p. 77–86; Blum (1988) (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Wikipedia, "Chaetodon" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Kuiter, R. H. 2004. Description of a new species of butterflyfish, Roa australis, from northwestern Australia (Pisces: Perciformes: Chaetodontidae). Records of (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Chaetodon (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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