Chaetodipterus faber
Atlantic Spadefish [+]

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Perciformes
Family: Ephippidae
Genus: Chaetodipterus
species: Chaetodipterus faber
+ITIS +WoRMS +Conservation Status

Description & Behavior

The Atlantic spadefish, Chaetodipterus faber, is silvery gray in color with vertical black bars. It is known and named for its characteristic spade-shaped body, which is compressed with a short snout. Atlantic spadefish typically grow to 30-45 cm with maximum lengths up to 91 cm and have 2 dorsal fins and 2 anal fins with high anterior lobes. There are also 9 dorsal spines, 21-24 dorsal soft rays, and 17-18 anal soft rays. Juveniles, which are commonly found in shallow coastal waters, are black in color for greater camouflage. Atlantic spadefish are frequently curious toward divers and their bubbles.

World Range & Habitat

The Atlantic spadefish, Chaetodipterus faber, is found around subtropical reefs, commonly off the coast of Florida and the Bahamas to southeastern Brazil and the Gulf of Mexico in depths that range from 3-35 m. Adults often form schools in open water of up to 500 individuals.

» GBIF occurrence data in Google Earth [Requirements | Tips] | Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) [World Map] | [about]

Feeding Behavior (Ecology)

The Atlantic spadefish, Chaetodipterus faber, feeds primarily on benthic invertebrates and plankton.

Zooplankton: microscopic animals that feed on other plankton. They can be larval or immature stages of adult animals, single-celled animals, or tiny crustaceans.

Benthic invertebrates: animals that live in or near the bottom substrate of a marine environment such as annelids, cnidarians, crustaceans, and mollusks.

Life History

The Atlantic spadefish, Chaetodipterus Faber, has a minimum population doubling time of 1.4 - 4.4 years.

Population doubling time: the number of years required for the population of a given species to double its present size, given the current rate of population growth, used to measure a specie's resilience to fishing pressure or other environmental stressors.

Comments

When ingested by humans, the Atlantic spadefish, Chaetodipterus faber, has been associated with ciguatera poisoning, which is caused by ciguatoxins in the flesh of tropical marine fishes. Ciguatoxins, produced by marine dinoflagellates, grow on algae and are ingested by herbivorous fishes. Larger fish also accumulate the toxin by feeding on smaller herbivorous fishes, and become reservoirs of toxic levels of ciguatoxin. The poisoning can last for several weeks and is diagnosed by signs and symptoms that include gastrointestinal problems, weakness in the arms and legs, and trouble distinguishing between hot and cold.

This species is occasionally found sold fresh in markets and as part of the aquarium trade.

References & Further Research

BioOne ~ CITES ~ Discover Life ~ GBIF ~ Google Scholar ~ ITIS ~ IUCN RedList ~ MarineBio Network ~ NCBI ~ SCIRIS ~ SIRIS ~ Tree of Life Web Project ~ Wikipedia

Reef Fish Identification: Florida, Caribbean, Bahamas By Paul Humann, Ned DeLoach.

Search the Web for Atlantic Spadefish » ARKive ~ Ask.com ~ Ask Jeeves ~ bing ~ deviantART ~ dmoz ~ Dogpile ~ Google Images ~ MySpace Images ~ OceanFootage ~ Picsearch ~ StumbleUpon ~ Yahoo! Images ~ YouTube

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Citation: Chaetodipterus faber, Atlantic Spadefish - MarineBio.org. Retrieved , from .

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Chaetodipterus faber Atlantic Spadefish [+]