Fourspot butterflyfish
| Four-spotted Butterflyfish | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Actinopterygii |
| Order: | Perciformes |
| Family: | Chaetodontidae |
| Genus: | Chaetodon (but see text) |
| Subgenus: | Exornator |
| Species: | C. quadrimaculatus |
| Binomial name | |
| Chaetodon quadrimaculatus J. E. Gray, 1831 | |
The Four-spotted Butterflyfish or fourspot butterflyfish (Chaetodon quadrimaculatus) is a species of butterflyfish (family Chaetodontidae) found in the Pacific Ocean from the Ryukyus, Ogasawara (Bonin) Islands and Taiwan to the Hawaiian, Marquesan, and Pitcairn islands, south to the Samoan and Austral Islands and the Marianas and Marshall Islands in Micronesia.[1]
It is a quite distinct species, but most closely related to the Speckled Butterflyfish (C. citrinellus). Together they are basal in the subgenus Exornator, and might be intermediate between the core group of this subgenus and the species of the Rhombochaetodon (or Roaops) lineage. If that is correct, the latter would require to be merged into Exornator. If the genus Chaetodon is split up, Exornator might become a subgenus of Lepidochaetodon.[2]
Footnotes
References
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Chaetodon quadrimaculatus. |
- Fessler, Jennifer L. & Westneat, Mark W. (2007): Molecular phylogenetics of the butterflyfishes (Chaetodontidae): Taxonomy and biogeography of a global coral reef fish family. Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 45(1): 50–68. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2007.05.018 (HTML abstract)
- FishBase [2008]: Chaetodon quadrimaculatus. Retrieved 2008-SEP-01.
- Hsu, Kui-Ching; Chen, Jeng-Ping & Shao, Kwang-Tsao (2007): Molecular phylogeny of Chaetodon (Teleostei: Chaetodontidae) in the Indo-West Pacific: evolution in geminate species pairs and species groups. Raffles Bulletin of Zoology Supplement 14: 77-86. PDF fulltext