Species: Hypoplectrus maculiferus, Bicolored hamlet
large black spot: side snout & top tail base
Hypoplectrus maculiferus (Poey, 1871)
Bicolored hamlet
Head and body deep, strongly compressed; forehead straight; snout relatively short; top jaw protrusible; rear of top jaw exposed when mouth closed, without accessory bone above it; teeth fixed; preoperculum angular, serrated, several small forward pointing spines on lower edge near the corner; gill rakers 17-23; dorsal fin X, 14-17, no notch after spines, membranes between spines not indented; pelvics long, reach to or beyond anus; tail fin slightly forked; lateral line scales 48-53; soft dorsal and anal fins mostly scaleless.
Upper head, back and spiny dorsal dark grey-brown, rest of fins and body yellow; side of snout with a large, ocellated black spot; irregular blue spots and thin blue bars on front of head; a large black saddle on upper tail base.
Reaches 13 cm.
Lives on reefs.
Depth range: 3-12 m.
Cuba to the southern Caribbean
Note: Due to its rarity, and the similarity of its color pattern to that of the common species H. aberrans (the only difference is that H. aberrans lacks a strong tail-base blotch), H. maculiferus likely is simply a color variant of the latter.
High Resolution Map Download
- Salinity
-
- Marine
- Inshore/Offshore
-
- Inshore
- Water Column Position
-
- Bottom
- Habitat
-
- Corals
- Reef (rock/coral/oyster)
- Reef associated (reef + edges-water column & soft bottom)
- Reef only
- Rocks
- FishBase Habitat
-
- Reef Associated
- Feeding Group
-
- Carnivore
- Data
- Diet
-
- Mobile benthic crustacea (shrimps/crabs)
- Bony fishes
- Data
- Egg Type
-
- Data
- Pelagic
- Pelagic larva
- Global Endemism
-
- West Atlantic Endemic
- All species.
- Greater Caribbean endemic
- Regional Endemism
-
- All species..
- Island (s)
- Island (s) only
- GC endemic
- Caribbean endemic
- Residency
-
- Resident
- Climate Zone
-
- Tropical (10-23N, Nicaragua / Cuba)
- IUCN Red List
-
- Listed
- Data deficient
- CITES
-
- Not listed
- Length Max
-
- 13
- Depth Range Min
-
- 3
- Depth Range Max
-
- 12
