Amphiprion melanopus
| red and black anemonefish | |
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| A. melanopus in Entacmaea quadricolor | |
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Not evaluated (IUCN 3.1)
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Actinopterygii |
| Order: | Perciformes |
| Family: | Pomacentridae |
| Genus: | Amphiprion |
| Species: | A. melanopus |
| Binomial name | |
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Amphiprion melanopus Bleaker, 1852 |
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| Synonyms | |
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Amphiprion arion |
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Amphiprion arion
Amphiprion monofasciatus
Amphiprion verweyi
Prochilus macrostoma
Prochilus macrostomus
Amphiprion melanopus, also known as the cinnamon clownfish, red and black anemonefish, black-backed anemonefish or dusky anemonefish is a widely distributed anemonefish chiefly found in the western and southern parts of the Pacific Ocean.. The species scientific name 'melanopus' is Greek, meaning black feet in reference to the black pelvic fins. Like all anemonefishes it forms a symbiotic mutualism with sea anemones and is unaffected by the stinging tentacles of the host anemone. It is a sequential hermaphrodite with a strict sized based dominance hierarchy: the female is largest, the breeding male is second largest, and the male non-breeders get progressively smaller as the hierarchy descends. They exhibit protandry, meaning the breeding male will change to female if the sole breeding female dies, with the largest non-breeder becomes the breeding male.
A. melanopus adults can grow to 12 cm (4.7 inches). The body of A. melanopus is a dark red to orange with mahogany sides. Juveniles and adults have a white head band, which is wide and starts behind the eye, which may gave a blue tint. The dorsal and caudal fins of the fish have a lighter color than the rest of the fish and can sometimes be a cinnamon color. The pelvic and anal fins are usually black.
Historically anemonefish have been identified by morphological features, color pattern in the field, while in a laboratory other features such as scalation of the head, tooth shape and body proportions. These features have been used to group species into 6 complexes.A. melanopus is in the tomato complex and so is similar to other members of the complex. A. rubrocinctus and A. melanopus are similar in appearance but geographically distinct with A. rubrocinctus limited to north western Australia. A. barberi was previously thought to be a geographic variation of A. melanopus and there are significant color-pattern differences, with A. melanopus having a dark brown or blackish body, compared to the red orange of A. barberi. A. melanopus also has 19-26 spines in the upper-opercular series while A. barberi has only 11-19.
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Wikipedia