Paranthias
Paranthias is a genus of marine ray-finned fish which are commonly referred to as creolefish. They are groupers from the family Epinephelidae which are found in the Atlantic Ocean and the eastern Pacific Ocean. Unlike other groupers, they are filter feeders like the distantly related "true" anthias.
Taxonomy
The genus Paranthias was created in 1863 by the American ichthyologist Theodore Nicholas Gill as a monotypic genus; it contained only the type species Serranus furcifer. The Pacific creole-fish was considered conspecific with the creolefish until it was accepted as a distinct species. The name is a combination of para- and anthias, alluding to their superficial resemblance to Anthiadines such as Anthias.Groupers were formerly considered part of the family Serranidae as the subfamily Ephinephelinae; this family formerly included the "true" anthias as well, but after Serranidae was revised and split, Paranthias and other groupers are now considered distinct from the true anthias. The elevation of Epinephelidae and Anthiadidae into their own distinct families was eventually accepted by multiple taxonomic authorities, such as the World Register of Marine Species, Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The genus contains the following species:
Some taxonomic resources consider Paranthias to be a junior synonym of Cephalopholis, as suggested by phylogenetic analyses using molecular data, as well as the intermediate form known as "Menephorus" known from the Caribbean, which has been proven to be a hybrid between Paranthias furcifer and Cephalopholis fulva.