Dunckerocampus

Yellow tape pipefish ( Dunckerocampus pessuliferus )

Dunckerocampus is a pipefish genus, which occurs in the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean and western Pacific to New Caledonia.

Features

Dunckerocampus species are 10 to 19 cm long, they have a very slim body and a long tube muzzle. They tend to have a whitish or yellow color and patterned with more or less broad, reddish, brownish or black stripes. The large, round or fan-shaped caudal fin is each patterned with a species-specific, eye-catching design.

Way of life

Dunckerocampus species live in coral reefs, are free-swimming fish and usually stay on or in front of caves or under Riffüberhängen. They feed primarily on small crustaceans such as copepods and some species are also active as a cleaner fish and clean the larger fish of parasitic crustaceans.

Dunckerocampus species live as adult fish in pairs usually. After the mating season the males take the eggs from the female, to carry them to the sponge-like changes in ventral side. The approximately 30 to 200 eggs per brood lying there half open and are not protected by lateral skin flaps.

Species

There are seven types described. Kuiter specifies two additional, previously undescribed species of the genus.

  • Stripes pipefish ( Dunckerocampus baldwini ) ( Herald & Randall, 1972); 15 cm; Hawaii.
  • Broadband pipefish ( Dunckerocampus boylei ) Kuiter, 1998; 16 cm; Red Sea and Indian Ocean.
  • Light -tailed pipefish ( Dunckerocampus chapmani ) ( Herald, 1953); 10 cm; New Caledonia.
  • Banded Pipefish ( Dunckerocampus dactyliophorus ) ( Bleeker, 1853); 19 cm; Java.
  • A lot of bands pipefish ( Dunckerocampus multiannulatus ) ( Regan, 1903); 19 cm; Indian Ocean.
  • Dunckerocampus naia, Allen & Kuiter, 2004; 12 cm; Fiji.
  • Yellow tape pipefish ( Dunckerocampus pessuliferus ) ( Fowler, 1938); 16 cm; Sulu Sea, along the Wallace Line to South Indonesia.

System

Dunckerocampus belongs to the subfamily of the flag tail pipefish ( Doryrhamphinae ) associated with the snake needles ( Nerophinae ) form the taxon Gastrophori, that pipefish, where the breeding zone of males is under the abdomen in front of the anus. Dunckerocampus was originally regarded as a subgenus of Doryrhamphus, but is now regarded as a separate genus.

Syngnathiformes Gilbert Percy Whitley Syngnathidae
249591
de