Sparisoma
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Sparisoma viride
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific classification | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||
|
See text. |
Sparisoma is a genus of eleven parrotfishes native to the Atlantic. They are the main grazers of algae in the Caribbean since sea urchins, the former main grazers, experienced a mass extinction and was supplanted by the parrotfishes.
The name was proposed by William Swainson as a subgenus of Scarus. "Sparus" in Latin is a golden-headed fish, and "soma" means "body". The common spelling "Sparisomus" is incorrect.
The size of parrotfishes of the genus Sparisoma range from the rather regular-sized Sparisoma radians with a known maximum length of 20 cm to the very large Sparisoma rubripinne, which reaches lengths of up to 47.8 cm.
The most well-known parrotfish from the genus Sparisoma is the stoplight parrotfish, Sparisoma viride. It is a fish that can change sex, like many of the fish from the genus Sparisoma. Like all other parrotfishes, it uses its pectoral fins to move: the caudal fin is reserved for rapid bursts of speed. It is most well-known, probably because it was the first to be classified. Its range is from the Gulf of Mexico down to parts of South America.
The genus Sparisoma is fairly successful, but populations have been falling somewhat because of overfishing and other human activities. However, as mentioned above, it is the main grazer of algae, but since populations have been falling, the coral reefs may be at risk, for it is now known that too much algae is deleterious to coral.
[edit] Species
- Sparisoma amplum (Ranzani, 1842)
- Greenblotch parrotfish, Sparisoma atomarium (Poey, 1861)
- Redband parrotfish, Sparisoma aurofrenatum (Valenciennes, 1840)
- Sparisoma axillare (Steindachner, 1878)
- Redtail parrotfish, Sparisoma chrysopterum (Bloch & Schneider, 1801)
- Sparisoma cretense (Linnaeus, 1758)
- Sparisoma frondosum (Agassiz, 1831)
- Sparisoma griseorubrum Cervigón, 1982
- Bucktooth parrotfish, Sparisoma radians (Valenciennes, 1840)
- Redfin parrotfish, Sparisoma rubripinne (Valenciennes, 1840)
- Strigate parrotfish , Sparisoma strigatum (Günther, 1862)
- Sparisoma tuiupiranga Gasparini, Joyeux & Floeter, 2003
- Stoplight parrotfish, Sparisoma viride (Bonnaterre, 1788)
[edit] References
- "Sparisoma". FishBase. Ed. Ranier Froese and Daniel Pauly. March 2006 version. N.p.: FishBase, 2006.
