Chordates • Earth.com

Red emperor

(Lutjanus sebae)

galery

Description

Lutjanus sebae, the emperor red snapper, emperor snapper, government bream, king snapper, queenfish or red kelp, is a species of marine ray-finned fish, a snapper belonging to the family Lutjanidae. It is native to the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific Ocean. Lutjanus sebae has a very deep body, its standard length being just over twice its depth. The forehead is steeply sloped, the snout has a straight or convex upper profile and the knob and incision on the preopercle are moderately developed. The vomerine teeth are arranged in a crescent shaped or triangular patch with no rearwards extension and there no teeth on the smooth tongue. The dorsal fin has 11 spines and 15-16 soft rays and the anal fin has 3 spines and 10 soft rays, the rear of the dorsal and anal fins is very pointed. The pectoral fins contain 17 rays and the caudal fin is weakly forked. This species attains a maximum total length of 116 cm (46 in), although 60 cm (24 in) is more typical, and the maximum published weight is 32.7 kg (72 lb).The overall colour of this fish is reddish to pink with red fins. Juveniles and subadults show a band of dark red band starting at the snout tip running through the eye up to the anteriormost spine in the dorsal fin, a wide band then runs from the middle of the spiny part of the dorsal fin to the pelvic fin, and an oblique band runs from the tip of the rearmost dorsal fin spine to the ventral lobe of the caudal fin. Lutjanus sebae has a wide Indo-Pacific distribution from Eastern Africa where it’s range extends from the southern Red Sea to South Africa east into the Pacific Ocean as far as New Caledonia, south to Australia and north to southern Japan. In Australian waters this species can be found from Bunbury, Western Australia around the coast to Sydney. This species is an inhabitant of both rocky and coral reefs, preferring flat areas with either a sandy or gravel substrate. Lutjanus sebae was first formally described in 1816 as Diacope sebae by the French zoologist Georges Cuvier, Cuvier did not give a type locality but it is though to be either the Coromandel Coast of India or so where in Indonesia.The specific name honours Albertus Seba, a Dutch pharmacist, zoologist and natural history collector, who published a Thesaurus of animal specimens with beautiful engravings in 1734. This included examples of marine life from the Indo-Pacific, including an illustration of the emperor red snapper.

Taxonomic tree:

Domain:
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum:
Class: Actinopterygii
Order:Perciformes
Family:Lutjanidae
Genus:Lutjanus
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