Melichthys niger

• Main Authors: Love, Milton S., Bizzarro, Joseph J., Cornthwaite, Maria, Frable, Benjamin W., Maslenikov, Katherine P.
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: unknown
• Published: Zenodo 2021
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Taxonomy; Animalia; Chordata; Actinopterygii; Tetraodontiformes; Balistidae; Melichthys; Melichthys niger; Beaufort Sea; Alaska; Yukon
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5609938; http://treatment.plazi.org/id/03BE87D6FF4FFF6B98EAF9C4F9A23748

Melichthys niger (Bloch, 1786). Black Durgon or Black Triggerfish. To 51 cm (20 in) TL (Eschmeyer and Herald 1983). Circumglobal; western Pacific Ocean north to Ryukyu Islands, Japan (Hayashi in Nakabo 2002); San Diego, southern California to southern Gulf of California (Robertson and Allen 2002), Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia (Robertson and Allen 2015), and Ecuador, including Islas Galápagos (Grove and Lavenberg 1997). Not confirmed north of Mexico since it was reported off San Diego in the 1800s (Miller and Lea 1972, Eschmeyer and Herald 1983). A report of this fish from Metlatkatla, Alaska (Karinen et al. 1985), represents a misidentified Balistes polylepis Steindachner, 1876 (Mecklenburg et al. 2002). Benthic; depth: surface to 75 m (246 ft) (min.: Lieske and Myers 2002; max.: Matsuura in Carpenter and Niem 2001). Published as part of Love, Milton S., Bizzarro, Joseph J., Cornthwaite, Maria, Frable, Benjamin W. & Maslenikov, Katherine P., 2021, Checklist of marine and estuarine fishes from the Alaska-Yukon Border, Beaufort Sea, to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, pp. 1-285 in Zootaxa 5053 (1) on page 223, DOI:10.11646/zootaxa.5053.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/5578008