Ebosia is a genus of marine ray-finned fishes belonging to the family Scorpaenidae, the scorpionfishes. They are known as falcate lionfishes. They are native to the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
Taxonomy Ebosia was described as a genus in 1904 by the American ichthyologists David Starr Jordan and Edwin Chapin Starks in 1904 with Pterois bleekeri, which had been described in 1884 by Ludwig Heinrich Philipp Döderlein from Tokyo, as the type species. This genus is classified within the tribe Pteroini of the subfamily Scorpaeninae within the family Scorpaenidae. The genus name is a latinisation of eboshi, a type of helmet which bears some resemblance to the parietal crests shown by the males in this genus.
Species There are currently 4 recognized species in this genus: Image Scientific name Common name Distribution Ebosia bleekeri (Döderlein, 1884) Bleeker's lionfish southern Japan to Hong Kong, Also from Australia, Taiwan, China and Korea Ebosia falcata Eschmeyer & Rama Rao, 1978 Falcate lionfish Somalia, Pakistan and the west coast of India and off the Andaman Sea coast of Thailand. Ebosia saya Matsunuma & Motomura, 2014 Saya lionfish Saya de Malha Bank Ebosia vespertina Matsunuma & Motomura, 2015 Western falcate lionfish Mozambique and the east coast of South Africa, Madagascar
Characteristics Ebosia lionfishes are characterised by having the bases of the spines on the nuchal, parietal and coronal bones being continuous with the parietal spine being longer and, in males, creates a slender, bony crest. These lionfishes vary in size from a maximum published standard length of in E. falcata to in E. bleekeri.
Distribution and habitat Ebosia lionfishes are found in the Indo-Pacific from the eastern coast of Africa between Somalia and South Africa across the Indian Ocean and eastwards into the Pacific Ocean as far as eastern Australia, north to Japan, Korea and China. These fishes are found where there is a sandy or muddy substrates at depths of normally less than .
Biology Ebosia lionfishes are, like other scorpionfishes, predatory. E. bleekeri is known to feed on small fishes and crustaceans.
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