Plectranthias fourmanoiri Randall

• Main Authors: Gill, Anthony C., Pogonoski, John J., Moore, Glenn I., Johnson, Jeffrey W.
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Taxonomy; Animalia; Chordata; Actinopterygii; Perciformes; Serranidae; Plectranthias; Plectranthias fourmanoiri; Pacific; Indian; Randall; Hobbs; Henderson Island
• Online Access: https://zenodo.org/record/4474385; https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4474385

Plectranthias fourmanoiri Randall Figures 16, 21; Tables 1–16, 24 Common name: Fourmanoir’s Perchlet Plectranthias fourmanoiri Randall 1980: 125, fig. 7, tab. 7 (type locality: Enewetak Island, Marshall Islands; paratypes from Christmas Island).— Allen & Steene 1988: 180, fig. 133 (checklist, photo, Christmas Island).— Allen 2000: 87 (checklist, Christmas Island).— Allen & Erdmann 2012: 288 (diagnosis, photo, Christmas Island).— Hobbs et al. 2014a: 194, tab. 1 (checklist, Christmas Island).— Anderson 2018: 27 (checklist). — Parenti & Randall 2020: 25 (checklist). Diagnosis. The following combination of characters distinguishes P. fourmanoiri from congeners: palatines edentate; dorsal segmented rays usually 16–18 (rarely 20); fourth or fifth dorsal spine longest; pectoral rays 12–13, all unbranched; predorsal scales extend anteriorly only to vertical through mid-pupil; lateral line complete or interrupted, with 15–26 + 0–4 tubed scales. It is also distinctive in having a large black spot on the middle portion of dorsal fin, one near the end of the the dorsal fin, one over the base of the last four anal rays, and one mid-ventrally on the abdomen in front of the anus. Remarks. A relatively small species (largest specimen 39.5 mm SL), P. fourmanoiri was previously known in Australia only from Christmas Island. We here record it from Holmes Reef, Coral Sea, based on a specimen collected for the aquarium trade by Cairns Marine collecter Cale Bennett. A photograph of the specimen is provided in Figure 21. The species is otherwise known from oceanic islands throughout the West Pacific, ranging as far east as the Pitcairn Islands (Randall 1980). Randall and subsequent authors (e.g., Allen & Erdmann 2012, Tashiro & Motomura 2017) record the species as having a complete lateral line consisting of 25 tubed scales. However, three specimens examined by us (two from Morane, French Polynesia, and one from Henderson Island, Pitcairn Islands) have incomplete or interrupted lateral lines bilaterally. The ...