Ablabys

Ablabys is a genus of marine ray-finned fishes, waspfishes 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.

Ablabys
Cockatoo Waspfish (A. taenianotus)
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Actinopterygii
Order:	Perciformes
Family:	Scorpaenidae
Subfamily:	Tetraroginae
Genus:	Ablabys Kaup, 1873
Type species
Apistus taenianotus Cuvier, 1829[1]
Synonyms[1]
Amblyapistus Bleeker, 1876 Parocosia Whitley, 1958 Platypterus Swainson, 1839

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,^[2] as the type species of the genus.^[1] The genus is included in the subfamily Tetraroginae within the Scorpaenidae in the 5th edition of Fishes of the World^[3] however other authorities place that subfamily within the stonefish family Synanceiidae,^[1] while other authorities classify this subfamily as a family in its own right.^[4] The genus name Ablabys derives from the Greek 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.^[5]

Species

There are five recognized species are in this genus:^[4]

• Ablabys binotatus (W. K. H. Peters, 1855) (redskinfish)
• Ablabys gymnothorax Chungthanawong & Motomura, 2018 (scaleless spiny waspfish)
• Ablabys macracanthus (Bleeker, 1852) (spiny waspfish)
• Ablabys pauciporus Chungthanawong & Motomura, 2018 (lesser-scaled cockatoo waspfish)
• Ablabys taenianotus (G. Cuvier, 1829) (cockatoo waspfish)

References

1. Eschmeyer, William N.; Fricke, Ron & van der Laan, Richard (eds.). "Genera in the family Tetraroginae". Catalog of Fishes. California Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 16 March 2022.
2. Eschmeyer, William N.; Fricke, Ron & van der Laan, Richard (eds.). "Species in the genus Ablabys". Catalog of Fishes. California Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 16 March 2022.
3. J. S. Nelson; T. C. Grande; M. V. H. Wilson (2016). Fishes of the World (5th ed.). Wiley. pp. 468–475. ISBN 978-1-118-34233-6. Archived from the original on 2019-04-08. Retrieved 2022-03-16.
4. Froese, Rainer; Pauly, Daniel (eds.). "Species in genus Ablabys". FishBase. February 2022 version.
5. Christopher Scharpf & Kenneth J. Lazara, eds. (10 March 2022). "Order Perciformes (Part 10): Suborder Scorpaenoidei: Families Apistidae, Tetrarogidae, Synanceiidae, Aploacrinidae, Perryenidae, Eschmeyeridae, Pataceidae, Gnathanacanthidae, Congiopodidae and Zanclorhynchidae". The ETYFish Project Fish Name Etymology Database. Christopher Scharpf and Kenneth J. Lazara. Retrieved 16 March 2022.