| Morwongs | |
|---|---|
| Porae, Nemadactylus douglasii | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Actinopterygii |
| Order: | Perciformes |
| Family: | Cheilodactylidae |
| Genera | |
|
Cheilodactylus |
|
Morwongs are perciform fishes comprising the family Cheilodactylidae. Most of the almost 30 species are found in temperate and subtropical oceans in the Southern Hemisphere, but three (Cheilodactylus quadricornis, C. zebra and C. zonatus) are restricted to northwest Pacific off Japan and China, and C. vittatus is restricted to Hawaii. The largest species grow up to 1.2 metres (3.9 ft), but most species only reach around half that length. They feed on small invertebrates on the ocean floor. Several species of morwong are commercially harvested as food fish, particularly in Australia.
Other names for members of the family include butterfish, fingerfin, jackassfish, and moki. Morwongs are also erroneously known as snappers.
Morwong is also used as a name for several unrelated fish found in Australian waters, such as the painted sweetlips, Diagramma pictum.
The below list follows traditional taxonomy, as used by FishBase and California Academy of Sciences' Catalog of Fishes.[1][2] This includes several problems: At a higher level, the traditional delimination of this family and Latridae is based on morphological differences, but the reliability of these differences has been questioned, and genetics do not support this treatment either, leading some to suggest that the majority should be in Latridae.[3][4] Based on this, the only species that should remain in the family Cheilodactylidae are the relatively small Cheilodactylus fasciatus and C. pixi from southern Africa.[3] This also means that the broader definition of the genus Cheilodactylus (as done in the below list) is polyphyletic.[3][5] One suggested solution has been to leave about half the species in Cheilodactylus and move the remaining half to Goniistius,[5] but this relatively simple proposal does not take the extreme divergence of C. fasciatus and C. pixi into account.[3] All other "Cheilodactylus" clearly do not belong with these two in Cheilodactylus and instead appear to belong in several different genera (only one of which is Goniistius), but how many and their exact delimination is not clear at present.[3]