Please help to ID this triggerfish ...

[Sengreef]

Fish about 2.5" look like a juv trigger with very rough surface on whole body not like the common trigger smooth type ... top & bottom fin are very big ... the color is actually like that ... sorry for the poor photo due to fish moving fast ...

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[Terryz_]

Looks like Canthidermis maculatus

[Sengreef]

wow thanks a lot for the ID ...

[Tony Gill]

Yes, Canthidermis maculatus is the name currently applied to this species. I suspect, however, that this is actually a complex of very similar species. I commenced a study on the genus some time back, but it has been sitting on the back burner and still requires a lot of work. One day ...

Tony

[Terryz_]

Yes, Canthidermis maculatus is the name currently applied to this species. I suspect, however, that this is actually a complex of very similar species. I commenced a study on the genus some time back, but it has been sitting on the back burner and still requires a lot of work. One day ...

Tony

It doesnt really looks like a maculatus totally but very similar and a lot similar ones are labelled as maculatus.. It is difficult to tell without any dna testing.. I just hope there are more attention given to weird fishes that have lesser commercial values. But given it is human nature to focus on thing with more values..

[Tony Gill]

It's been a long time since I looked at my data, but if I remember correctly there appears to be three species in the Atlantic, and at least three species in the Indo-Pacific. Most literature considers there to be only two species in the genus, a circumtropical C. maculata, and C. sufflamen in the Atlantic. I only published one paper on the genus (co-authored with Jack Randall), which showed that there is a distinct species in the north-west Indian Ocean and Red Sea (C. macrolepis). I really need to get back looking at these fishes and writing up the paper. (I also have another triggerfish paper that has been on the back burner for many years - showing that there are two species of Balistapus.) It's difficult to find time to work up these sorts of papers - particularly when I have at least 20 such papers in progress.