Melon butterflyfish
The melon butterflyfish or the Indian redfin butterflyfish, is a species of marine ray-finned fish, a butterflyfish belonging to the family Chaetodontidae. It is found in the Indian Ocean from East Africa to Western Java. This is one species of a closely related group which includes the blacktail butterflyfish of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden and the oval butterflyfish which is found in the western Pacific, from eastern coasts of the Indonesian islands to Australia.
Melon butterflyfish should not be confused with chevron butterflyfish, three-striped butterflyfish, or three-banded butterflyfish.
Description and characteristics
The oval butterflyfish and the blacktail butterflyfish resemble C. trifasciatus in coloration. The former has a less conspicuous back patch below the dorsal fin and a mainly dark anal fin, while the latter has black caudal and anal fins.Melon, black-tailed, oval butterflyfishes, and probably also the somewhat aberrant Arabian butterflyfish make up the subgenus Corallochaetodon, of which C. trifasciatus is the type species. They are probably quite close to the subgenus called "Citharoedus", which contains for example the scrawled butterflyfish. Like that group, they might be separated in Megaprotodon if the genus Chaetodon is split up.