Flagtail
The flagtails (āhole or āholehole in the Hawaiian language) are a family (Kuhliidae) of perciform fish of the Indo-Pacific area. The family consists of several species in one genus, Kuhlia, of which, one, (K. rupestris), is freshwater. The others are marine.
Description
The distinctive characteristic of these fish is a scaly sheath around the dorsal and anal fins. The dorsal fin is deeply notched between the 10 spines and the 9-13 soft rays. The opercle has two spines, and the anal fin three. Their bodies are compressed and silvery, and they tend to be small, growing to 50 cm at most.
During the day they usually school, dispersing at night to feed on free-swimming crustaceans.
Species
- Kuhlia caudavittata (Lacépède, 1802).
- Kuhlia malo (Valenciennes, 1831).
- Dark-margined flagtail, Kuhlia marginata (Cuvier, 1829).
- Barred flagtail, Kuhlia mugil (Forster, 1801).
- Silver flagtail, Kuhlia munda (De Vis, 1884).
- Kuhlia nutabunda Kendall & Radcliffe, 1912.
- Kuhlia petiti Schultz, 1943.
- Kuhlia rubens (Spinola, 1807).
- Rock flagtail, Kuhlia rupestris (Lacépède, 1802).
- Kuhlia salelea Schultz, 1943.
- Hawaiian flagtail, Kuhlia sandvicensis (Steindachner, 1876).
- also known as Hawaiian flagtail, Kuhlia xenura (Jordan & Gilbert, 1882).
References
- Froese, Rainer, and Daniel Pauly, eds. (2006). "Kuhliidae" in FishBase. January 2006 version.
- Froese, Rainer, and Daniel Pauly, eds. (2006). Species of Kuhlia in FishBase. January 2006 version.
- Mary Kawena Pukui and Elbert (2003). "lookup of āholehole". on Hawaiian dictionary. Ulukau, the Hawaiian Electronic Library, University of Hawaii. http://wehewehe.org/cgi-bin/hdict?e=q&a=q&l=en&q=aholehole. Retrieved July 9, 2010.
- Mary Kawena Pukui and Elbert (2003). "lookup of āhole". on Hawaiian dictionary. Ulukau, the Hawaiian Electronic Library, University of Hawaii. http://wehewehe.org/cgi-bin/hdict?e=q&a=q&l=en&q=ahole. Retrieved July 9, 2010.