Chlorurus microrhinos

Chlorurus microrhinos, the blunt-head parrotfish or steephead parrotfish, is a species of marine ray-finned fish, a parrotfish from the family Scaridae.[4] It is found in the Indo-Pacific region.

Chlorurus microrhinos
Male Chlorurus microrhinos from French Polynesia

Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Labriformes
Family: Scaridae
Genus: Chlorurus
Species:
C. microrhinos
Binomial name
Chlorurus microrhinos
(Bleeker, 1854)[2]
Synonyms[3]

Callyodon microrhinus (Bleeker, 1854)
Callyodon ultramarinus Jordan & Seale, 1906
Pseudoscarus microrhinos (Bleeker, 1854)
Scarus microrhinos Bleeker, 1854

Distribution

This species is one of the most widespread. It is present in the extreme east Indian Ocean and in the Pacific Ocean, from the Ryukyu and Ogasawara Islands to Indonesia and Australian Great Barrier Reef, Lord Howe Island, New Caledonia and French Polynesia, and eastwards to Oceania (Hawaii and Easter Island excluded).[1]

Habitat and biology

Chlorurus microrhinos can be found in many different habitats, including lagoon, inshore reefs and ocean reef fronts, from 2 to 50 m. At Guam, large individuals are seldom seen in shallow water[1] This species occurs schools which forage over lagoons and seaward reefs which are rich in algae growth. The graze on filamentous algae.[5] This large species of parrotfish has an important ecological role in coral reefs because as they graze they excavate the coral to feed on algae. It grows quickly and can attain an age of 15 years old.[6] These parrotfishes mainly feed on benthic algae and material scraped from corals leaving exposed reef substrate. They usually swim in schools of about 40 fish, although juveniles are generally solitary. The flesh of the adults may be slightly toxic at some Pacific localities.[1]

Description
Close-up head of Chlorurus microrhinos

Chlorurus microrhinos usually grows to be about 80 centimetres (31 in) long. These parrotfishes are greenish blue, with a brilliant blue band behind the corner of the mouth and a wide blue patch along the head. Rarely some individuals may be uniformly yellowish-tan. The cheek is crossed by an irregular line, below which the colour is usually greenish-yellow. Larger fishes are uniformly dark, greenish brown, turning into greenish blue only with age, but they do not undergo as radical a color change with growth as do other scarids.

They have nine dorsal spines, 10 dorsal soft rays, 3 anal spines and 9 anal soft ray. The tail is crescent shaped in large terminal males, while in juveniles is rounded. Adults show large exposed blue-green tooth plates, with one or two canines on each side of the upper plate.[7]

Large males develop a prominent forehead (hence the common name of blunt-head parrotfishes). Juveniles are black with some horizontal white stripes.[8]

Some geographic variation exists between Red Sea, Western Indian Ocean, and Pacific populations, and an unusual reddish-tan phase occurs in the central Pacific.[9]

Juvenile

Taxonomy

Chlorurus microrhinos was first formally described as Scarus microrhinos in 1854 by the Dutch medical doctor, ichthyologist, and herpetologist Pieter Bleeker (1819-1878) with the type locality given as Jakarta.[10] It forms a species complex with Chlorurus gibbus in the Red Sea and Chlorurus strongylocephalus in the Indian Ocean.[3]

Bibliography
  • Bellwood, D.R. 2001: Family Scaridae. A: Carpenter & Niem 2001. Species identification guide for fishery purposes. Bony fishes part 4. 6: 3468–3492, Pls. VI-XIV.
  • Bleeker, P. 1854: Speciés piscium bataviensium novae vel minus cognitae. Natuurkundig Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch Indië, 6: 191–202.
  • Helfman, G., B. Collette i D. Facey: The diversity of fishes. Blackwell Science, Malden, Massachusetts (USA), 1997.
  • Moyle, P. i J. Cech.: Fishes: An Introduction to Ichthyology, 4a edició, Upper Saddle River (Nova Jersey, Estats Units): Prentice-Hall..
  • Nelson, J.: Fishes of the World, 3rd ed.. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
  • Parenti, P. I J.E. Randall. An annotated checklist of the species of the labroid fish families Labridae and Scaridae. Ichthyol. Bull. J.L.B. Smith Inst. Ichthyol. (68):1–97.
  • Randall, J.E., 1986. Scaridae. p. 706–714. A M.M. Smith i P.C. Heemstra (eds.) Smiths' sea fishes. Springer-Verlag.
  • Wheeler, A.: The World Encyclopedia of Fishes, 2nd ed.: Macdonald.
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References
  1. Choat, J.H.; Carpenter, K.E.; Clements, K.D.; et al. (2012). "Chlorurus microrhinos". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2012: e.T190728A17783512. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2012.RLTS.T190728A17783512.en. Retrieved 9 February 2020.
  2. Marine Species
  3. Froese, Rainer and Pauly, Daniel, eds. (2019). "Chlorurus microrhinos" in FishBase. August 2019 version.
  4. Biolib
  5. "Steephead Parrotfish (Chlorurus microrhinos)". whatsthatfish.com. Retrieved 9 February 2020.
  6. Dianne J. Bray. "Chlorurus microrhinos". Fishes of Australia. Museums Victoria. Retrieved 9 February 2020.
  7. Australian Museum
  8. OZ Animals – Australian Wildlife
  9. Amesbury, S.S. and Myers, R.F., Scaridae(Parrotfishes). Retrieved 23rd, 2014 from: Guam Marine Lab Archived 24 October 2012 at the Wayback Machine
  10. Eschmeyer, W. N.; R. Fricke & R. van der Laan (eds.). "Scarus microrhinos". Catalog of Fishes. California Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 9 February 2020.
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