Rudie Hermann Kuiter, Aquatic Photographics, Australien
Info
The knifetail is a deep-bodied fish with teeth fused into a parrot-like bill, an elongated dorsal fin, and five broad, dark vertical bands on the head and body.
The upper side of the body is brown to yellowish-gray, the underside yellow or cream, with 5 broad black vertical bands on the side, the first of which passes through the eye and the fifth over the caudal peduncle.
The fins are yellow in color, with a black spot on the soft part of the dorsal and anal fins .
The beak-like jaws are good for crushing hard-shelled invertebrates.
The feeding list of the meesertail consists primarily of the following species:
1. tetractinellid sponges (class Demospongiae).
It is advantageous for Oplegnathus woodwardi to feed on tetractinellid sponges because they are sessile, palatable, and very abundant in the environment of this predator, so foraging does not have a high energetic cost.
2. hard-shelled crustaceans
3. smaller fish
The species is particularly common in the Great Australian Bight, with juveniles occasionally found in nearshore shoals.
Oplegnathus woodwardi is parasitized by the trematode Paralepidapedon ostorhinchi (Korotaeva, 1974) Bray & Cribb, 1997 formerly Lepidapedon (Lepidapedon) ostorhinchi.
The upper side of the body is brown to yellowish-gray, the underside yellow or cream, with 5 broad black vertical bands on the side, the first of which passes through the eye and the fifth over the caudal peduncle.
The fins are yellow in color, with a black spot on the soft part of the dorsal and anal fins .
The beak-like jaws are good for crushing hard-shelled invertebrates.
The feeding list of the meesertail consists primarily of the following species:
1. tetractinellid sponges (class Demospongiae).
It is advantageous for Oplegnathus woodwardi to feed on tetractinellid sponges because they are sessile, palatable, and very abundant in the environment of this predator, so foraging does not have a high energetic cost.
2. hard-shelled crustaceans
3. smaller fish
The species is particularly common in the Great Australian Bight, with juveniles occasionally found in nearshore shoals.
Oplegnathus woodwardi is parasitized by the trematode Paralepidapedon ostorhinchi (Korotaeva, 1974) Bray & Cribb, 1997 formerly Lepidapedon (Lepidapedon) ostorhinchi.
