Chlorurus
Genus of ray-finned fishes
Chlorurus is a genus of parrotfish from the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
01Etymology
The word 'Chlorurus' comes from the Greek words 'chloros', which means green and 'oura', which means tail.
02Evolution
Chlorurus is most closely related to its sister genus Scarus. Most recent phylogenetic analyses find that the two genera diverged during the late Miocene (Messinian). In both genera, most of their diversification occurred some time later, within the last 3.5 million years during the Pliocene. In contrast, coral reefs in their modern form were established much earlier, during the Miocene.
A 2012 phylogenetic analysis of 16 of the 18 Chlorurus species recovered 5 major monophyletic clades.
03Species
There are 18 species:
| Species | Terminal phase | Initial phase |
|---|---|---|
| Chlorurus atrilunula | ||
| Chlorurus bleekeri
(de Beaufort, 1940) |
||
| Chlorurus bowersi
(Snyder, 1909) |
||
| Chlorurus capistratoides
(Bleeker, 1847) |
||
| Chlorurus cyanescens
(Valenciennes, 1840) |
||
| Chlorurus enneacanthus
(Lacépède, 1802) |
||
| Chlorurus frontalis
(Valenciennes, 1840) |
||
| Chlorurus genazonatus
(Randall & Bruce, 1983) |
||
| Chlorurus gibbus
(Rüppell, 1829) |
||
| Chlorurus japanensis
(Bloch, 1789) |
||
| Chlorurus microrhinos
(Bleeker, 1854) |
||
| Chlorurus oedema
(Snyder, 1909) |
||
| Chlorurus perspicillatus
(Steindachner, 1879) |
||
| Chlorurus rhakoura
Randall & Anderson, 1997 |
||
| Chlorurus sordidus
(Forsskål, 1775) |
||
| Chlorurus spilurus
(Valenciennes, 1840) |
||
| Chlorurus strongylocephalus
(Bleeker, 1855) |
||
| Chlorurus troschelii
(Bleeker, 1853) |
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Chlorurus”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Chlorurus strongylocephalus 473622089 (cropped).jpg by Darren Obbard, CC BY 4.0
- Chlorurus enneacanthus, Raa Atoll, Maldives imported from iNaturalist photo 473622472 (cropped).jpg by (c) Darren Obbard, some rights reserved (CC BY), CC BY 4.0
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