Description

SINGLE PAPER

Volume 15, Issue 2 – 18 April 2009

John E. Randall and John L. Earle: Variation in habitat and color of the Hawaiian scorpionfish Sebastapistes coniorta, pp. 61-68

Abstract
Small scorpionfish specimens found in two old Bishop Museum lots of Sebastapistes ballieui from the Hawaiian Islands and suspected of being the non-Hawaiian S. cyanostigma, are re-identified as the Hawaiian endemic S. coniorta. The wide-ranging Indo-Pacific S. cyanostigma is distinguished from S. coniorta in having numerous white dots rather than small dark brown spots, and in the structure of the double suborbital ridge (merging to a single ridge posteriorly in S. cyanostigma). Unusual variation in the habitat and life color of S. coniorta is documented.