Ablabys is a genus of marine , belonging to the subfamily Tetraroginae, which is classified as part of the family Scorpaenidae, the scorpionfishes and their relatives. The fishes in this genus are found in the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific Ocean.
Taxonomy
Ablabys was first formally described as a genus in 1873 by the German
naturalist Johann Jakob Kaup. In 1966 the Australian
ichthyologist Gilbert Percy Whitley designated
Apistus taenianotus, which had been described by
Georges Cuvier in 1829 from the Mascarene Islands,
as the
type species of the genus.
[ The genus is included in the subfamily Tetraroginae within the Scorpaenidae in the 5th edition of Fishes of the World][ while other authorities classify this subfamily as a family in its own right.][ The genus name Ablabys derives from the Greek language ablabes, which means "harmless", Kaup did not explain this but it may refer to "blunt armament of the head" as this genus has blunter head spines in comparison to related genera.]
Species
There are five recognized species are in this genus:
-
Ablabys binotatus (Wilhelm Peters, 1855) (redskinfish)
-
Ablabys gymnothorax Chungthanawong & Motomura, 2018 (scaleless spiny waspfish)
-
Ablabys macracanthus (Pieter Bleeker, 1852) (spiny waspfish)
-
Ablabys pauciporus Chungthanawong & Motomura, 2018 (lesser-scaled cockatoo waspfish)
-
Ablabys taenianotus (Georges Cuvier, 1829) (cockatoo waspfish)
