Chiseltooth wrasse

Meisselzahn wrasse ( Pseudodax moluccanus )

The Meisselzahn wrasse ( Pseudodax moluccanus ) is a species of the order Perciformes. He lives in the Red Sea and throughout the tropical and subtropical Indo-Pacific from South and East Africa to Japan, Australia ( also on the south coast ) and the Society Islands, the Marquesas and Tuamotu. He lives a solitary or in pairs in outer reefs at depths up to 40 meters.

Features

He is distinguished by its exceptional, above dentition from all other wrasses. Its body shape is thin and small, similarly to the Anampses species. Fully Accreted animals are brown in color, is in the center of each scale, a dark brown stain. The top of the front body and the dorsal fin are orange. Dorsal, ventral and anal fins blue lined. The caudal fin is black, with a broad, vertical, yellow ribbon at the root. The pectoral fins are yellow and the upper lip, a small blue longitudinal band runs from the snout tip to the lower edge of the gill cover. Males and females are colored alike. The dorsal fin has eleven hard fin rays and twelve soft. The anal fin three hard and soft 14. Meisselzahn wrasses are 25 to 30 inches long.

Juvenile Meisselzahn wrasses are more slender, light blue with a broad dark longitudinal band. They resemble the Putzerlippfischen and clean as these other fish of parasites.

Adult animals feed on small, hard-shelled invertebrates.

System

The Meisselzahn wrasse differs in its dentition so greatly from other wrasses from which he placed in its own subfamily, the Pseudodacinae was. Often, an association was adopted with the parrot fish, which have also strong, but otherwise built teeth. Phylogenetic analyzes place it as a basal member of the Zahnlippfischen ( Hypseginyae ).