Lutjanus fulvus

Background

Lutjanus fulvus was first formally described in 1801 as Holocentrus fulvus by the German-speaking Polish-born naturalist Johan Reinhold Forster, with the type locality given as Ota-haitee (Tahiti). The description was published in Systema Ichthyologiae by Marcus Elieser Bloch and Johann Gottlob Schneider, and is sometimes attributed to either Bloch & Schneider or to Schneider. The specific name fulvus means 'brownish yellow,' referring to the overall tan or brownish to pale yellow-white color of the body.

The species has a body with a standard length about four times its depth, a steeply sloped forehead, and a well-developed notch in the preoperculum. The vomerine teeth are arranged in a crescent-shaped patch with no rearward extension, and the tongue is smooth.

The dorsal fin has 10 spines and 14 soft rays, the anal fin has 3 spines and 8 soft rays, and the caudal fin is slightly emarginate. Overall color ranges from orange-brown or brownish to pale yellowish or whitish, with dark reddish to blackish dorsal and caudal fins having a white margin, and yellow anal, pectoral, and pelvic fins. Juveniles have yellowish horizontal stripes and a black band just under the margin of the dorsal fin.

It has a wide Indo-Pacific distribution, from the Gulf of Aden and East Africa south to South Africa through the Indian Ocean, east to the Marquesas and Line Islands, north to southern Japan, and south to Australia. During the 1950s, the Hawaiian Division of Fish and Game released blacktail snappers into Pearl Harbor and off Oahu, and it is now found throughout the Hawaiian archipelago but is nowhere abundant. It inhabits lagoons and semi-sheltered seaward reefs at depths of 2 to 75 m, and was one of the first species to recolonize a recently dredged reef off Pohnpei.