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Common name: None Functional type: Smasher Range: Central Pacific to southern China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and Australia Habitat: Live coral specialist, usually in finely branching corals Depth: Low intertidal to 10 m; usually found in bright, shallow waters Home: Chips out cavities in center of live, branching corals Diet: Crustaceans and gastropods; little is known of its diet in the wild Size: 8120 mm (this is the largest species of gonodactylid) Color: Sexually color dimorphic; body of both sexes dark green with red inter-segmental stripes; males with blue antennal scales and uropods; females with orange or yellow antennal scales and uropods; meral spot bright orange Distinguishing Characters: Orange meral spot; red inter-segmental line (occasionally seen in Gonodactylus smithii) Activity: Diurnal
Suitability for Aquarium: Good; will break coral and requires stable water parameters; one concern is that this species is often collected from live coral heads that may be destroyed in the collecting process Availability: Occasional, particularly in shipments from Indonesia Back to the Species Directory |