Tubeflix
The Most Colorful Fish In The World / Mandarinfish / Synchiropus Splendidus
This article is about the dragonet fish Synchiropus splendidus. For the Chinese perch Siniperca chuatsi, see mandarin fish.
The mandarinfish or mandarin dragonet (Synchiropus splendidus), is a small, brightly colored member of the dragonet family, which is popular in the saltwater aquarium trade. The mandarinfish is native to the Pacific, ranging approximately from the Ryukyu Islands south to Australia.
Taxonomy and etymology
The mandarinfish was first described as Callionymus splendidus in 1927 by Albert William Herre, an American ichthyologist working in the Philippines. It was later placed in genus Synchiropus. The generic name Synchiropus is from Ancient Greek syn-, meaning "together", and -chiropus meaning "hand-foot". The specific epithet splendidus is from Latin for splendid. The common name of the mandarinfish comes from its extremely vivid colouration, evoking the robes of an Imperial Chinese mandarin. Other common names include mandarin goby, green mandarin, striped mandarinfish, striped dragonet, green dragonet and sometimes psychedelic mandarinfish. The similarly named mandarin fish (Siniperca chuatsi), properly known as the Chinese perch, is only distantly related.
The mandarinfish belongs to the perciform family Callionymidae, the dragonets, which counts 10 genera and more than 182 species. Genus Synchiropus counts 51 species, divided into 10 subgenera. The mandarinfish is in subgenus Synchiropus (Pterosynchiropus) along with the Australian LSD-fish (S. occidentalis) and the LSD- or psychedelic fish (S. picturatus).
