Animalia Life

Monotaxis grandoculis
FAMILY
Lethrinidae
TAXONOMY
Monotaxis grandoculis (Forsskеl, 1775), Jidda, Saudi Arabia, Red Sea.
OTHER COMMON NAMES
English: Big-eye barenose, big-eye bream; French: Emperor bossu; Japanese: Yokushima-kurodai.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
The body is oblong with a strongly convex profile of the head anterior to the eye; the snout is steeply sloped. The mouth is relatively large with pronounced canines and molars that are used for grasping and crushing prey, respectively. The eye is large; juveniles have a prominent black stripe through the eye. The dorsal fin has 10 slender spines and 10 soft rays, the anal fin has 3 spines and 9 soft rays, and the pectoral fin has 14 rays. The caudal fin is forked in adults and somewhat lunate in juveniles. Body color is light brown to bluish grey; ventral surfaces are white. Three prominent black or dark brown saddles cover the flank dorsally. Fins and the caudal peduncle range from yellow or reddish orange to clear or dusky. The lobes of the caudal fin may be pink in adults. Able to switch between dark and light color forms by
BEHAVIOR
al control, usually in response to the color of the sea bottom. Grows to 23.6 in (60 cm) in total length.
DISTRIBUTION
Indo-West Pacific, from the Red Sea and East Africa east to the Hawaiian Islands, southeast to French Polynesia, south to northern Australia, and north to southern Japan.
HABITAT
Tropical coral and rocky reefs, over coral, sand, and rubble.
FEEDING ECOLOGY AND DIET
Feeds at night upon gastropods, echinoderms (mainly sea stars and brittle stars, but also sea cucumbers), crabs, polychaete worms, and tunicates.
BEHAVIOR
Often solitary in the water-column; juveniles closer to the bottom. Adults also form large aggregations that swim lazily over the reef or reef slope.
REPRODUCTIVE BIOLOGY
Little is known. Probably forms spawning aggregations and produces pelagic eggs and larvae.
CONSERVATION STATUS
Not listed by the IUCN.
SIGNIFICANCE TO HUMANS
Taken in commercial, subsistence, and recreational fisheries; juveniles are collected infrequently for the aquarium trade, and adults are collected for large public aquaria. May be ciguatoxic in some areas, such as the Marshall Islands.

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